Pen drives - reviews / benchmarks?

I'm after a large pen drive, either 4GB or 8GB and was looking at scan as my usual supplier. I saw the great price on the 8GB own branded stick and was about to buy when I thought I would check speeds first.

I have a 2GB scan pen drive and a 1GB Transcend.

I did a quick test of 1 x 700MB file.

The scan pen drive took 343 secs, 2.04 MB/sec

The Transcend took 74 seconds, 9.46 MB/sec

I wondered why the scan one was so cheap, it all seems clear now.

After that I decided against the 8GB scan one, I don't fancy waiting 1h 5 mins to fill it up!

Any suggestions on reasonably priced higher capacity pen drives?

I googled for reviews but found very few that gave tested (rather than quoted) transfer rate.

I use a SD card with a USB->SD converter (about the same size of a pendrive)
Very fast and easily upgradable :)

Food for thought :)

I guess it depends on what you want. I have a 4GB Cruzer Micro. Did 700Mb in just under 90 secs. For me it has 3 other attributes that made it a winner:

1. It has backup (and other) software on a virtual CD;
2. It has a retractable USB "dongle" which is much neater than the normal stick + top solution; and
3. It has a very clear light that shows it's working.

I like the corsair voyager series as they are very rugged and state their speeds clearly. They are also reasonably prices at scan and available from 512mb to 16GB

I've also noticed a huge difference in speed between drives. The latest Sumvision ones I've bought have been around 3.5 times slower than my Sandisk Cruzer Mini - this isn't too bad if you're only copying small files now and again, but for regular, large transfers, it's better so spend a few quid extra and get the decent performance.

The Cruzer range are a good price/performance choice and can usually be found at play.com at a reasonable price inc free delivery.