Corsair 128GB Voyager Slider USB 3.0 Flash Drive (CMFSL3B-128GB)

Pros: The device features a sliding mechanism rather then the standard cap which many people tend to lose. The drive is well built and fell really solid in your hand. One half of it is coated in hard rubber for shock resistance from drops, allows you to get a better grip on the drive, and acts as a non-slip surface when you place it down. It also has a lanyard hole. It also features a blue led activity rather then the far too common red and green led. Its a nice change. The drive is smaller and more compact compared to other Corsair Voyager drivers which tend to be bulky. It fit perfectly in my laptop USB port with another USB device plugged in next to it. For benchmarking the performance of the drive I used CrystalDiskMark v3.0.2f and took the sequential read and write from a 100MB file and the average of 5 tests: USB 3.0 Read = 68.1 MB/s USB 3.0 Write = 19.2 MB/s USB 2.0 Read = 31.3 MB/s USB 2.0 Write = 19.1 MB/s The write speeds were the same regardless if it was USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 but we see a big difference in read speeds. That is what USB 3.0 is an upgrade over USB 2.0, not write speeds. The tests I preformed show the device can attain the advertised speed or very close too. For a more real world test rather than synthetic benchmarks, I copied to the drive a folder which contained 24 files averaging about 300MB each and totaling about 7GB and then copied it back to the computer and recorded the speeds. For USB 3.0 I got an average of 17.9 MB/s for write and 67.7 MB/s for read. For USB 2.0 I got an average of 17.4 MB/s for write and 24.5 MB/s for read. The storage capacity of this drive is very large. Could eliminate the need for portable hard drives.

Cons: No lanyard included.

Overall Review: Overall this a very well built drive and all the tests I performed came very close to the advertised speeds. I had trouble finding any faults with it. Though I would assume I high end flash drive they could throw in a cheap lanyard into the packaging. I also noticed they started shipping these on cardboard and plastic instead of the old blister packaging which is great. Might be slightly bulky since certain laptops and desktops have the USB ports very close together, make sure to check before purchasing this device.

Pros: -- activity light -- self-closing cap

Cons: -- no lanyard -- end of USB port still open

Overall Review: There are 3 things about USB drives important to me: form, size, and speed. Form: this drive is physically big compared to many. It’s thick plastic case is sturdy enough, but may block closely spaced USB ports beside or above it, especially on thin laptops. Although I dislike separate caps, this oversliding snap cap cover enlarges the dimensions significantly. The cap goes over the USB plug, but the end stays open to dirt and elements. A subtle blue light tells when activity happens. (Although I like the slim, metal drives from other vendors, I do miss the activity light on those.) It has a lanyard ring, but no lanyard. It would not fit on a thick key ring or carabiner. Size: it comes with a single blank partition, only exFAT formatted for compatibility. In 10 seconds it reformats to NTFS for large files to backup (like movies). For the size of a small SSD hard drive, it holds a lot! “Corsair” pops up immediately upon plug in. I like manufacturers giving these non-generic names to separate from other devices. Speed: It works well, but the performance is average. This drive averaged about 45MB/s reads and writes about 25 MB/s on my system. The Corsair GTs are much faster at double the cost. Corsair makes excellent memory products that should last a long time. It has a 5 year warranty. It also costs less than an external 128GB SSD and is much smaller/lighter to carry around.

Pros: Slider Compact USB 3.0 115GB usable Plug and play, no utility installs or add-ons Attachable to lanyard or keychain provided you have your own clip Better read speed than my 3.0 external HDD

Cons: Although it is not bulky, it can interfere with other USBs side-by-side if they are similar sized, however I had no issues with the multiple USBs already plugged in the back next to it. Write speeds are somewhat low compared to my external 3.0 HDD, but this makes up for it in portability and read speed. Slider clicks into place when pushed to expose USB head, however I feel it should also click-secure when being covered, although it is a minor gripe as it won't slide around in normal use or handling.

Overall Review: Only tested as USB 3.0 as there are cheaper 2.0 ones; if you plan to use this in 2.0 then look else where as some of the benefits of buying this are wasted. Read speeds in large files settled on 108.12 MB/s Write speeds in the same files averaged 32.04 MB/s Now this is what CDM gave me: Read Seq - 48.41 MB/s Write Seq - 27.04 MB/s Read 512k - 42.29 MB/s Write 512k - 0.924 MB/s Read 4k - 5.579 MB/s Write 4k - 0.02 MB/s Read 4kQD32 - 7.054 MB/s Write 4kQD32 - 0.021 MB/s

Pros: Tons of room! It's a slider, so it does shrink **a little** for your pocket or bag. Feels pretty solid. You can easily install Windows To Go (if you're rolling with Windows 8 Enterprise) to have a solid OS walking around in your pocket for troubleshooting. Read and write speeds are about par for the course (actual benchmarks below). Blue transfer light isn't annoyingly bright like with some devices.

Cons: Wider than I'd like and may interfere with nearby ports, depending on what kind of ports those are. Not sure if it's possible, but I'd prefer a longer, skinnier stick than a shorter, wider stick. Comes formatted FAT32. Good for easy removal without ejecting, but FAT32 limits you to a max of 4GB "per file" size limit. If you're using this guy, my guess is you may need individual files (full image backups, videos) that exceed 4GB. If that's so, it's easy enough to reformat to NTFS (+/- 16TB individual file size limit).

Overall Review: Actual total size is 115GB free. Would I recommend the drive to someone in the market for a large capacity USB 3.0 drive? Heck yeah! Tons of uses for this baby, and the speeds are average for the class. It isn't the fastest drive in the world, but it isn't the slowest. So, depending on the price compared to the rest on the day you're looking, it could be an easy buy. Speaking of speeds.......Ready for some benchmarks? I didn't do USB 2 test because, let's face, why are you buying this if you're plugging it into a USB 2 port? Computer is my home server running Windows 8 with the drive plugged into the rear panel of my ASUS P8H67-M EVO motherboard. Single large file copy/paste of a 40.1GB Avatar M2TS Blu-Ray file, speed averaged over five transfer tests. Write - 33.3 MB/s (266.4 mbps) Read - 120 MB/s (960 mbps) CrystalDiskMark 3 (1000MB test averaged out over five runs) Read Seq - 35.86 MB/s (286.88 mbps) Write Seq - 18.74 MB/s (149.92 mbps) Read 512K - 5.270 MB/s (42.16 mbps) Write 512K - .547 MB/s (4.376 mbps) Read 4K - 5.270 MB/s (42.16 mbps) Write 4K - .019 MB/s (0.152 mbps) Read 4K QD32 - 5.228 MB/s (41.824 mbps) Write 4k QD32 - .020 MB/s (0.16 mbps) HD Tune Pro 5.50 Read Average - 33.3 MB/s (266.4 mbps) Access time - 3.38 ms TrueCrypt volume encryption (AES) Drive encryption speed - 18.2 MB/s (145.6 mbps)

Pros: the slider is nice. no more losing caps.as anyone should know once formatted it will lose a little bit of the storage. read and write times are great.much faster than my other drives. i will recommend to others.

Cons: none that i have found

Pros: The flash drive performed as expected and works beautifully across a range of devices and Operating Systems such as Windows XP, Ubuntu, Windows 7, 8 and Server 2003/2008/2012. I was pleased with the performance on both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. Copying a 326 MB file took about 6 Seconds on USB 2.0 and 3 seconds on USB 3.0 - however I did also perform benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (Results in MB/s) 50 MB, USB 2.0 SEQ Read: 35.60, Write: 13.14 512K Read: 32.19, Write 13.93 4K Read: 4.665, 1.491 4K QD32: 5.383, Write: 1.710 CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (Results in MB/s) 50 MB, USB 3.0 SEQ Read: 99.06, Write: 44.96 512K Read: 86.43, Write 24.47 4K Read: 6.614, 1.533 4K QD32: 8.065, Write: 1.775 Overall for the capacity and speed I would consider this Flash drive to be of good quality. I have not received any corrupt data or problems so far.

Cons: Two minor cons which could affect others but not me. 1. The flash drive is a bit wide so do not expect to plugin any other device next to it if the other USB port is very close. 2. Sometimes when inserting the Flash Drive into a tight USB port the USB connector in the flash drive retracts. I would have to push the flash drive in by holding it from the back instead of the sides.

Overall Review: Formatted to 115 GB on Windows 7, NTFS.

Pros: 128GB version is very roomy, 115GB available after formatting. Fast (enough) Reads and decent Writes using USB 3.0 (see "Other thoughts" below for actual test results.) Very well-priced; affordable portable storage. Sliding cap cannot become lost. USB 3.0 interface. Rubberized side-grips aid in handling device. Pleasant blue LED connection and activity indicator. Lanyard-loop available if desired (lanyard not included.) Decent (but not exceptional) 5-year warranty.

Cons: USB 3.0 speeds are acceptable but not stellar. USB 2.0 speeds are unimpressive (see "Other thoughts" below for actual test results.) Somewhat large compared to similar flash drives, but not overly so. Sliding cap cannot be held when connecting the drive, you must hold it by the top and bottom, which may feel awkward depending on the application. Lanyard loop rather small, it may be difficult to pass a keyring or chain/cord through the opening. Warranty is not lifetime as is offered by some other manufacturers, although in fairness, there are others with as little as 2 years.

Overall Review: Following are test results using USB 3.0, then USB 2.0: ---------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo ---------------------------------------------------------------- USB 3.0 Sequential Read : 134.342 MB/s Sequential Write : 35.922 MB/s Test : 4000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/115.1 GB)] (x3) Sequential Read : 128.739 MB/s Sequential Write : 36.810 MB/s Test : 1000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/115.1 GB)] (x3) USB 2.0 Sequential Read : 31.295 MB/s Sequential Write : 19.019 MB/s Test : 4000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/115.1 GB)] (x3) Sequential Read : 31.103 MB/s Sequential Write : 19.223 MB/s Test : 1000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/115.1 GB)] (x3) OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64) The tests were performed 3X with 4GB files, then repeated with 1GB to see if the drive performed any differently; no great variations were indicated. Formatting was of the exFAT variety. As you will note, the USB 3.0 speeds are quite superior to those under USB 2.0, especially the Reads, which averaged 321% faster. The Writes, while not so dramatic, still averaged 90% faster under USB 3.0. All in all, this is a solid and affordably-priced flash drive. It may not be the fastest ship in the harbor, but it's still worth all of its modest price. You'll have to spend more to get more than this device delivers.

Pros: CrystalDiskMark 4.1.0 x64 Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 119.665 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 75.227 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 6.994 MB/s [ 1707.5 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.801 MB/s [ 195.6 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 101.714 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 74.250 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 4.654 MB/s [ 1136.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.747 MB/s [ 182.4 IOPS] Test : 1024 MiB [J: 0.1% (0.1/119.2 GiB)] (x3) [Interval=5 sec] Date : 2015/07/11 18:30:26 OS : Windows 8.1 [6.3 Build 9600] (x64) I've owned several USB flash drives before and this one is 2nd fastest I've ever owned, I'm glad I bought it for such great price and now I'm putting all of my most important files in this drive. I have a Voyager GS 64GB and is faster than this Slider, but the Slider is so much easier to handle than the GS The drive is a little bit on the chunky side, so if you have a USB port right next to the one where you'd plug this drive, it will get blocked by this drive......then again, why aren't manufacturers starting to put he USB ports far apart than they're now? For the price, you can't go wrong with this unit, 128GB of storage is enough for back ups, 64GB is nice but for this price and 128GB? This is definitely a better choice overall.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: There really isn't any other brand that can be as fast as Corsair, in theory they might be, but in reality I've tested several drives and they're close, but not enough to reach or match the speed. Reliability is 2nd to none, and so far I'm yet to have one of my Corsair flash drives fail on me.....also for that matter memory module or any other product from Corsair. Their products are rock solid and that's why I keep buying Corsair. 17 years building and playing with Computers? I know exactly what I'm doing, meaning Networking, Storage, building, modding,