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Here's the scenario: You need to bring an old 100MB patch file to a friend's place to patch his favorite shooter. For whatever reason, the game publisher no longer supports Daikatana, and the patch download is no longer available. You had tried emailing it, but his mail server rejects it by telling you you're an idiot for trying to shove a 100MB file down its throat. You have some possible solutions…
A Zip disk. Problem is, he does not have a Zip drive, and yours is an internal IDE. Sure, you can go through the hassle of removing and bringing it over, but you're not that good a friend.
You can burn it on CD, since everyone has a CD drive, but being cheap, you don't feel like blowing the 0.30$ on the blank media. Your pr0n and MP3 backups need all the CDs you got. Besides, you got to ride your sister's bike there (the one that has the Barbie stickers), and your pockets can't hold a CD jewel case. You'll already be fighting off an angry mob that want to kick your ass for riding that bike, so forget about holding the CD in your hands.
You proceed to break up the patch file into 1.44MB chunks and start writing them to floppy. You can explain the huge bulge in your pockets to that same mob that will pull you off the Barbie bike because the floppies in your pockets wouldn't allow you to peddle fast enough.
Using the real-life scenario above (real-life if your name is Mr. Bean), you can see that we've gotten ourselves into quite a dilemma. There is a way out of this and help you avoid the beating of a lifetime.
Having already reviewed the Trek flash drive previously, I must say that these gadgets are quite useful. Today, we'll be looking at a .
Specifications
O/S Support
Win ME/2000/XP
Win 98/SE with driver support
Mac OS 8.6, 9.1, 9.2 and above
Performance
Interface Speed
USB Full Speed Interface (Maximum Transfer): up to 12Mb/s
Read/Write Speed
Sequential Read: 950KB/s (Max)
Sequential Write: 925KB/s (Max)
Compliance
USB v2.0 Specification Mass Storage Compliant
USB Full Speed Certified
There is nothing terribly remarkable about the packaging. If you've purchased Crucial products before, then you're already familiar with their plain brown, cardboard boxes. Inside, you'll find the flash drive, a USB extension cable, and a small strap to carry the drive around.
The Crucial Gizmo! is a 128MB flash drive. As the description implies, the capacity is roughly 128MB, and the technology used for storage is flash memory. There are no moving parts, and any Windows OS after 98 will support it without drivers.
Originally, the website stated in no small words that the drive was a USB 2.0 drive. Although the drive is USB 2.0 compliant, it is no speedier than non-USB 2.0 compliant drives.
The drive is in fact a USB 1.1 device that will operate in USB 2.0 ports. We will do the tests to confirm, but this was a bit of a let down. During the course of the review, the information has been updated on their site to reflect this finding.
Update: Crucial did drop us a line explaining the USB implementation a little further. Here's what they had to say:
When Crucial introduced the Crucial Gizmo! USB flash drive we received a lot of questions from customers and the media about Universal Serial Bus (USB) speeds. People wanted to know if our Gizmo! drives are considered Hi-speed, Full-speed, USB 2.0, or 1.1. A closer look at USB revealed that nearly every company offering USB-compatible devices uses different nomenclature to describe their products. This can make shopping for USB devices really confusing.
For further understanding, Crucial went straight to the source, the USB Implementers Forum, Inc. a non-profit corporation founded by the group of companies that developed the Universal Serial Bus specification. We took what we learned and .
The article does clear a few things up and it's worth a read.
The USB cord is pretty useful in situations where it can be an inconvenience to reach to the back of your case. In my case, I wanted the cord to reach the top of my desk but the problem here is the cord is only about two feet long, so it wasn't long enough.
I'd imagine the cord will be good for those of you who only have rear mounted USB ports, and want a connection closer to the front of the PC.
Security
The Crucial Gizmo! comes with Secure-D software, where the installation is on the drive itself. This software allows you to setup public and private zones on the drive, so you can keep your "interesting" pictures in the private zone and password protect it.
Test Setup
ABIT NF7-S nForce2: Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, ATi AiW Radeon 9700 Pro, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, nForce 2 Unified Driver Package 2.03, ATi Catalyst 3.4.
The test files will be some high quality digital camera pictures, averaging about 2.5MB. In the first test, we'll be transferring 13MB of images in one zip file, and the second test will be the five files separately (totalling 13MB). The Crucial Gizmo! will go head-to-head against the Trek Thumbdrive. Both devices will be connected directly to the NF7-S USB 2.0 port.
The second test will be 80 images (totalling 115MB) transferred. Like the smaller test, we'll be zipping the images into one zip file, then testing again with all the files separate. Only the Crucial Gizmo! will be tested here. To test for USB speeds, the Gizmo! will be connected to the NF7-S USB 2.0 port, and to our MS Natural Keyboard's USB 1.1 port.
13MB Data Transfer
Although both devices are connected to the same USB 2.0 port, the Crucial Gizmo! does hold a significant lead over the Trek Thumbdrive in data transfer speeds. Other than the speed advantage, there's the storage advantage as well, but you can buy higher capacity Thumbdrives anyways.
115MB Data Transfer
Whether you choose USB 2.0 or 1.1, there will be no speed advantage when using the Gizmo! flash drive. I would account the performance differences to the fact that the data needs to move through the USB cable on the keyboard, but otherwise, performance is identical.
SiSoft Sandra File System Test
The SiSoft Sandra benchmarks are in line with what we normally see with USB flash drives. Don't expectt o break any speed records, but it gets the job done, and at least it's faster than a Zip.
Final Words
The Crucial Gizmo! proved to be a reliable device throughout testing, and I've been making heavy use of it over the past three weeks without issue. There are going to be times you need to grab some files off a friend or colleague's PC, and they may not have a burner, and a device like this comes in handy.
Cost per MB is fairly high, ringing in at about 0.43$/MB. Compare that with a CD, which will average less than 0.01$/MB, and you'll see that CDs are a much better bargain. However, the Crucial Gizmo! is much easier to transport, and it is useful if you don't have much information to carry around. For laptop users, not everyone has a CD burner built in, but almost any laptop will have a USB connection. The Gizmo! would make a good purchase if you have Word documents, or other small files you need to take with you if you need to exchange with other users.
I do think Crucial did drop the ball on not providing USB 2.0 speeds, as there aren't many flash drives that can boast that. If the drive was capable of those speeds, it likely would have received a high recommendation from us. It does beat emailing 100MB to yourself/colleague, and it is easier to carry around than a CD. It isn't for everyone, but I, for one, find it very useful.
Pros: Good speed for a flash drive, 128MB storage, USB, compact.
Cons: Not true USB 2.0, high cost per MB.
Bottom Line: Though cost per MB is high, the Gizmo! is quite a bit cheaper than some name brand flash drives. USB 2.0 speeds would have been nice, but the Gizmo! is faster than other drives we've tested.
If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
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