Pen drives - reviews / benchmarks?

[Daneel]

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.

[Agent]

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

[Thorsson]

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.

[nvening]

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

[max99]

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.