Pros: Very nicely packaged USB drive, allows for rapid file storage and in general is very functional with little to no setup required...... good stuff

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: For the money you cannot beat the product and the reliability it offers.

Pros: Easy to find locally.

Cons: I got the write-protected error in my first hour of use. Absurd. Waste of time and money. Since I can't return the opened blister pack, I'll just not buy any Patriot products ever again.

Pros: This is one fast USB flash drive and very compact. I love the sliding case. The price is very right for a fast 8GB drive.

Cons: The item is rated at "Up to 25MB/sec" however my results with Disk Mark were just under 19MB/sec. Read speeds were very good at 28MB/sec. I would like to know what I could do to replicate 25MB/sec writing.

The flashing activity LED is actually in the chain hole area so it is almost invisible and I wouldn't have noticed it had it not been dark one night while using it. This would be the only poor design aspect I discovered.

Other Thoughts: The drives case is larger than a standard USB flash drive so if you are looking to place this next to other USB ports in a tight grouping, this may not be for you.

This is not the fastest flash drive but it's a far cry from many on the market today. This one ranks right up with my Adata PD7 I bought 5 years ago for 40 bucks. Not sure why Adata stopped producing such high quality drives. Oh well, Patriot is a great name as well.

Highly Recommended!

Pros: Didn't expect the impressive retractable design, very nice. Also, very good speed and the soft to the touch plastic has a good feel.

Cons: Keyhole very long and narrow, not sure what would go through it.

Pros: These drives work great for intense read/write applications - used these for a couple of months.

Cons: When used constantly these drives get hot - had to modify them - removed cover stuck heat-sinks on memory to cool - plastic was melting - the plastic they use stinks when melted - sticker on the top memory module fried was hard to chip off..

Other Thoughts: Didnt expect them to last this long - tough little drives..

Pros: High read and write speeds right up to the point of the crash.

Cons: This USB drive has a very high error rate. On copying files of 500M or more it is almost certain to fail somewhere during the transfer. On failure the stick locks itself into a read-only mode which can only be cured by removing and reinserting the stick. After a few repetitions, the stick refuses to come up at all. I have the same symptoms in three different computers, under both Linux and Windows.

Looking at Patriot's customer support web pages, I am far from the only person to have this trouble. They have created a special Low-Level format utility just to address this problem. It works, but only temporarily. I really expect that a premium-price manufacturer like Patriot would be individually testing each and every unit before shipping. I can't imagine how these were allowed to slip through.

Other Thoughts: I bought this to do fast transfers of AVI files, but it is unusable. I have to keep checking the transfers, aborting, restarting, reformatting, etc. The cheap generic drives from my local electronics supermarket checkout counter display work slowly but flawlessly.

This unit is going back to NewEgg as defective. If NewEgg won't take it I'll throw it in the trash -- it's that worthless. I won't be taking a chance on anything from Patriot again.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please rest assured that all of our drives have gone through rigorous testing to ensure the best quality in the industry possible. Please be aware that the low level format tool is a common tool that is suggested as a means of factory resetting the drive, in some cases it is as effective as simply replacing the drive. This is a common tool used amongst usb manufacturers and repairs the drive. Other factors that normally cause the drive to have this write protected symptom are viruses or status shock. For any further questions please don't hesitate to contact support.

Thank You for choosing Patriot Memory!

Regards,
Support

External Link(s):

Contact Support|

Pros: It worked quite well and was fairly fast.

Cons: It broke after two weeks for no apparent reason with proper care.

Other Thoughts: My other, cheap, small flash drive has lasted me 5 years or so. This one broke after two weeks. Unfortunately my schedule is extremely busy so I didn't have time to get it returned (or sleep) so I can't say if it was just this one or if it's just a shoddy product. I'm suspicious of the whole sliding mechanism used instead of a cap like my older one uses.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We're sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused you. Please don't hesitate to contact support@patriotmem.com for any technical questions you may have and we'll gladly look into the issue to see what might have happened. Rest assured that we take pride in providing quality products and excellent service. If it is determined that an RMA is necessary, we'll be glad to expedite that process for you.

Thank You for choosing Patriot Memory!

Regards,
Patriot Support

Pros: Super fast. Plugs in and works. Dim LED in the back is trendy. I enjoy the lack of additional moving parts in the slider. It just slides. No springs attached ;) (i owned a sony product similar to this and once the spring busted the whole thing was slagged).

Cons: Try finding a key ring SMALL enough to fit this. I tried.. now the rubber looks like junk, as if its been beat up by wear and tear for months already.

Other Thoughts: I'll try to exchange this for the old style. I have a few 4gb of those and I'm quite impressed. I'm headed into the sandbox and I dont think the exposed connection is wise. Additionally I anticipate forgetting/losing/being relieved of it somehow.

Pros: The drive is small and fast easily achieves advertised read/write speeds, I use USB drives to store temp internet files [ virus - mal-ware - spy-ware] - its nice to be able to throw a infected drive out - then scan your system for hours - don't like to think about what the infected files are doing in the time it takes to find and delete them..

Cons: None to think of..

Other Thoughts: The slower drives make the net lag a bit [takes longer to load cookies and crapware on your system] not these drives - and C Cleaner is faster too..

Pros: fast, really fast transfer speeds.

Cons: none i have found

Other Thoughts: extremely good for the price.