Digital Home Thoughts: Verbatim's USB Store and Go PRO High-Speed Flash Drive

Verbatim sent me one of their new USB flash memory drives to look at, and I have to admit I wasn't all that excited. After all, aren't all these devices more or less the same? When I opened the box and saw that the packaging specified an impressive 80x speed rating, I wondered if it was marketing hype or based in fact - so I decided to put it to the test. Here’s a quick look at the product.

I first tested my current USB flash drive, a 256 MB model I got at the recent MSN Search Champs conference. It’s a “no name” drive but has served me well for the last month. Using 512 KB data chunks, it reads at 972 KB/s and writes at 920 KB/s. Not all that fast, but fast enough for most things. When I tested the Verbatim product, I was expecting to see more speed, perhaps two or three times as fast. Was I ever wrong! Using 512 KB data chunks, the drive hit a blistering 17 MB/s while reading - that's 17,000 KB/s compared to the 972 KB/s of my current drive. Write speeds were almost as impressive, hitting 10.5 MB/s over a five minute sustained test. That's fast - over ten times faster than my current drive. To really torture the drive, I kicked up the data size to 16 MB, which I thought would bring the Verbatim flash drive to it's knees. Much to my surprise, this wee beastie got even faster: an insane 19.2 MB/s reading, and a little faster at writing: 11.2 MB/s. Brother, that's fast!

Physically, the flash drive isn't much of a looker - it's thicker and longer than most drives, which in this market is a bit retro. The blue plastic feels like it can take a beating, but it’s no Titanium plating. When compared to its sibling, the diminutive Store 'n Go, it looks positively huge - so this speed comes at a price.

The drive comes with software that allows you to secure a portion of the drive with a password, and it also comes with document synchronization software. And, as usual with the stuff you get for free with your hardware, the software is poorly designed, has a horrible user-interface, and is best left alone. I had hoped that the sync software would automatically fire up and sync every time you connect the drive – but no such luck. You have to run the software manually and tell it to sync, so what’s the point then?

Coming in capacities from 256 MB up to 2 GB, the Verbatim USB Flash drive is blisteringly fast – that’s what it’s best at. In that light, if you routinely move big (100+ MB) files to a USB flash drive, the jaw-dropping speed of this product will save you a lot of time. When the guards are storming down the hall and you just have to get that 800 MB missile defense schematic onto your flash drive before leaping from the tenth story open window and base jumping to freedom, this is the tool you want to use. However, if speed isn’t your primary focus and you’re instead looking for the smallest, sleekest USB flash drive you can find, this is not the product you’re looking for.