I’m a Survivor!

Corsair has two flash drives for you to consider today: one that can get run over by cars and the other that requires a PIN number for security! If you are looking for something different in the world of flash drives, you’ll want to check this out!

Introduction

If I know my readers, chances are you have more than few of these now commodity flash drives sitting around your desk.  While once the floppy drive, Zip drive and CD-R discs were the temporary storage media of choice, that has quickly been surpassed by the use of USB flash drives.  They are faster, easier and don’t create a hassle; all Windows XP and above systems recognize them without drivers and there storage capacities have increased dramatically.

And as you’ll find in all commodity tech products, companies need to innovate in order to stand out.  Newegg has no less than 22 different brands of USB flash drives listed on their site; obviously the market is lucrative AND diluted.  What’s a company gotta do to get some attention around here?  Corsair has a couple of options that break the mold.

Corsair Flash Survivor

The Corsair Flash Survivor is marketed as “rugged” and “durable”, words not often associated with computer technology.  Corsair describes this product like this:

Flash Survivor is an extremely durable, water resistant, drop-tested flash USB memory drive. By design it is perfect for transporting valuable data such as personal files, photos and applications without having to worry about damage or loss of data due to the elements.

While at first you might think the idea of worrying about a flash drives succeptibility to the elements is wasted time, I think you’ll find soon that maybe it isn’t.

Corsair USB Flash Drives: Survivor and Padlock Change the Game - Storage 11

The Corsair Survivor is in the shape of a tube constructed with anodized aircraft-grade aluminum.  This keeps the unit light (though heavier than any other flash drive I have used) yet strong enough to withstand drops and potentially crushing car tires.  Corsair claims it is water resistant up to 200 meters and is protected from vibrations by those black, molded rubber collars.

Corsair USB Flash Drives: Survivor and Padlock Change the Game - Storage 12

As you can see here the Survivor unscrews and reveals a standard USB 2.0 connection for attaching to whatever computer device you choose.  Notice at the bottom of the threads on the USB unit itself there is a rubber gasket responsible for the water proof nature of the device. 

The Survivor does take a longer time to actually “use” than the other drives we have sitting around as you have to unscrew it and then screw it back together everytime you wish to access the data.  It’s not an incredibly long process of course, but if you do it a dozen times a day I could see how it might become annoying. 

Corsair USB Flash Drives: Survivor and Padlock Change the Game - Storage 13

In the packaging you’ll also find a USB extension dongle and a set of erm, dog tags.  The little circle on there can be used to attache the Survivor to it so that it can act as a lanyard as well.

Corsair USB Flash Drives: Survivor and Padlock Change the Game - Storage 14

With the boasting by Corsair of the “durability” of this device we of course had to test it out.  This started by simply dropping it around the house.  No problems there.  Then I moved outside where I started to drop the unit onto the concrete street.  Again, the drive continued to work perfectly when plugged back into my laptop and was copying data back and forth without issue.  Finally, I started just throwing the damn thing in the air and letting it come down as it may — and it still worked perfectly, but with some noticeable wear on the edges seen above. 

Corsair USB Flash Drives: Survivor and Padlock Change the Game - Storage 15

Next I wanted to test the water resistence of the Survivor.  I wasn’t about to head 200 meters down without diving gear, so sitting inside a cup full of water for a couple hours seemed to be the next best choice.  The image above shows the horrible torture the unit had to endure.

But again, I pulled the Survivor out, dried off the exterior and then plugged it in.  The all-too-familiar “bu-bump” sound chimed on and I was playing some video off of it in seconds. 

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