Corsair 64GB Voyager Slider X2 USB 3.0 Flash Drive, Speed Up to 200MB/s (CMFSL3X2-64GB)

Pros: Read and write performance is excellent when used with large files. Comparing this with other USB 3.0 drives using a 3.4 GB test file: Corsair Voyager 64 GB Slider X2: 101 MB/s write, 104 MB/s read. PQI U822V 32 GB: 19 MB/s write, 80 MB/s read. Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 32 GB: 11 MB/s write, 36 MB/s read. WDC My Passport 1 TB: 90 MB/s write, 104 MB/s read. and in case you don't have USB 3.0 yet, Corsair Voyager 64 GB Slider X2 (using USB 2.0): 36 MB/s write, 41 MB/s read. As you can see the write performance is remarkably fast. Benchmarking the write burst rate and random access time gives the following: Corsair Voyager 64 GB Slider X2: 135.8 MB/s burst, 0.8 ms access time. PQI U822V 32 GB: 31.6 MB/s burst, 0.7 ms access time. Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 32 GB: 24.2 MB/s burst, 0.8 ms access time. WDC My Passport 1 TB: 129.6 MB/s burst, 16.5 ms access time. It ships formatted as FAT32 and with no unwanted bloatware. Windows 7 reports 59.5 GB available. The activity LED is clearly visible without being too bright. My 32 GB flash drives don't have one and I was starting to think activity LEDs on flash drives were a thing of the past. When I write to the drive using Linux the copy operation reports that it's complete long before the system is finished writing, so I appreciate being able to tell at a glance that the write is still taking place. A 5 year warranty is excellent. I've used this on four different computers so far with no problems to report.

Cons: The improved write performance with large files does not extend to smaller files. I copied a Cygwin installation onto each of these USB drives to get a sense of small file write performance. This Cygwin installation is 4.05 GB spread among 32,905 files in 1,811 subdirectories. Write times were as follows: Corsair Voyager 64 GB Slider X2: 37 minutes, 25 seconds. PQI U822V 32 GB: 21 minutes, 25 seconds. Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 32 GB: 38 minutes, 50 seconds. WDC My Passport 1 TB: 4 minutes, 45 seconds. This flash drive is wider than most and on some computers that does restrict what you can use in the neighboring port. The slider is a little stiff to operate and it makes the already wide case a little wider. It feels rugged when closed, although the connector remains exposed.

Overall Review: It does get a little warm during extensive use but this did not cause any problems in my testing. I reformatted it from FAT32 to exFAT and the read/write speeds remained about the same. Interestingly enough, when I reformatted it as NTFS, large file writes would always start at around 100 MB/s and slowly decrease to 60 MB/s. I went back to exFAT and saw consistent 100 MB/s writes again.

Pros: I've been using this flash drive for nearly two months now. Previously I was using a corsair survivor. While able to get run over it was on the large side. I much prefer the size of this one. It shows virtually no signs of wear and tear after spending almost two months on my keychain. One of the biggest pros is the speed. It is fast. It took me no time to copy 10 HD movies over to this drive. I was getting a constant write speed of 125 megabytes a second. By far the fastest flash drive that I have ever used. The read speed is similarly awesome. I was able to see read speeds north of 200 megabytes a second. I personally like the lack of a cap and that it slides closed.

Cons: I personally don't have any cons that I can come up with for this one. It works as advertised and seems rather solid after a couple months of abuse. Some people might also have issues with the lack of a cap but I have yet to end up with any lint or anything else suck in it. Also some people might have issue with the plastic construction, I don't.

Overall Review: If someone asked me to recommend a larger, fast flash drive I wouldn't hesitate to offer this one up as a suggestion. It is unquestionably the fastest flash drive that I have come across to date. I'll be using this for years and the warranty will make sure of that if I were to encounter any issues.

Pros: Good build quality, no cap to lose, fast transfer speeds, solid warranty

Cons: More expensive than slower drives, USB connector is exposed so may not be best choice in an environment with water and/or dirt, design may overlap adjacent ports on some case panels

Overall Review: Corsair, once known primarily for their superior enthusiast memory, has been leveraging their reputation for quality into an ever-increasing number of product lines. They are now known as much for their cases and power supplies as their RAM. The Voyager X2 competes in a very crowded field: Newegg carries 65 64GB drives with USB 3.0, although only the most expensive offer the speed achieved by the X2. Corsair's price for the drive is right in line with those of its major brand competitors. It is certainly the fastest flash drive I've ever used and benchmarked speeds compare favorably with the USB 3.0 external hard drives and fixed hard drives I had on hand. The X2 comes pre-formatted for Fat32 and benchmarks exceedingly well: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 203.508 MB/s Sequential Write : 152.609 MB/s Test : 1000 MB [H: 13.0% (7.7/59.6 GB)] (x5) Date : 2015/05/07 12:38:09 OS : Windows NT 6.2 [6.2 Build 9200] (x64) I reformatted the drive for exFat in order to test transfers of large movie files from my various drives (Fat32 is limited to 4GB files). Reformatted the benchmark was somewhat slower on writes: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 198.069 MB/s Sequential Write : 115.418 MB/s Test : 1000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/59.6 GB)] (x5) Date : 2015/05/07 12:56:51 OS : Windows NT 6.2 [6.2 Build 9200] (x64) Transferring a a 13.5GB mkv file from my mainstream Toshiba 7200k 2TB drive to the X2 averaged a steady 120 MB/s. Transferring the same file from the same hard drive to a 3TB Seagate expansion drive was just a smidgen faster. Installation of Ubuntu to the X2 was quick and easy and ran without a hitch. Because I don't travel with a flash drive I'm not as concerned as the other reviewers about the exposed USB connector and the X2 fit the top panel of my Nzxt case without interfering with the conventional USB 3.0 cable connected to my Passport Ultra. I will note that the Sandisk Extreme drive I would also consider if I were in the market for a similar drive is priced the same and has the same exposed USB connection design. It does have a lifetime warranty compared to the Corsair's also solid 5 year warranty but I would not consider the warranty per se to be what determined my buying decision.

Pros: Very fast read speeds on USB 3 interface. Did I say very fast? it's REALLY fast. Write speed obviously not quite as fast, but still respectable. Sliding protective cover for USB connector will reduce some of the hazards faced by a "portable" product. Unobtrusive indicator lamp.

Cons: Sliding cover latch often slips when coming in and out of pocket exposing the connector. The detent is too small. Dirt/lint and crud from my pockets get into connector, as there is no protection at the end of the cover. While the full caps often go missing, I prefer the fully capped style. I found that the corsair blocks adjacent USB ports on systems without forward thinking designs Don't design a flash drive that is too wide, simpler to change the design of the flash drive then to change the width of the USB ports on some cases. My coolermaster HAf XM case has side by side USB ports and the Corsair blocks the second one, forcing me to plug my other USB 3 flash drive into a rear facing port.

Overall Review: The flash drive market is crowded..really crowded. It's an arduous task to select one drive over another. The demand for these products is very large, so everybody is trying to find the "got have it" factor. Pretty much the only thing that sets this particular drive apart in the market is it's blazing read speeds. The sliding cover concept in only partially successful I used it on a road trip as storage for a season of my favorite TV shows since my laptop has a small SSD drive in it , this 64gb flash makes a very nice travel companion for it. As expected, it played the WTV files without any issue whatsoever. I'll likely use it for my emergency windows recovery system. It can certainly all the tools I need to do a recovery. And my laptop bag has a perfect little spot for it. Because of the cover issues I can't keep at on my keyring. I have a small 8gb drive branded by a famous handbag company that does well for bringing files back and forth from my office. With the metal cap I never have to worry about contaminating or damaging the electronics. In my book, portable has to really mean it. If I drop my keys in a puddle, this drive might not make it. My cheapo metal capped flash would. It would make a great installer drive given it's very very fast read speed. My results were on par with the other reviews. My current system configurations do not support ready boost, but with fast read speeds, the Corsair would be an ideal bit for that purpose, as long as you can afford to give up a side by side USB port to use it.

Pros: Overall it is built very well. The black boot it slides in has a nice soft rubber feel to it. Slider works great, and locks in place with a snap when ready to use, also has a nice solid snap when retracting. Constructed of plastic and only weighs 10 grams! A small blue led lights up for visual indication when the drive is being used so you know it is working with just a glance. Comes formatted with FAT 32 and has a 5 year limited warranty. First I tested by writing 37 video files of various sizes, totaling 59.3GB with copy and paste. It was able to complete writing them to the drive in about 9 minutes. The drive was only slightly warm to the touch after doing this. Average writing speed while transferring the files stayed around the 120 MB/second range. I also connected the drive to my router, which has a USB 3.0 port and loaded up some videos and set it up as a DLNA device shared on my network to test it with streaming videos to various devices. It worked surprisingly well for streaming video files to my TV and tablets if you are streaming only one device at a time. If you have a television or dvd player with USB ports it also works great for viewing or playing music/pictures/videos directly from the drive! Played fine on both USB 2.0 and 3.0! Streaming videos or music while connected to the computer or tablet that you are using it on also worked great with no stuttering or buffering! Various flash drive speed testing tools averaged around 95 MB/second reading speed, and 142 MB/second writing speed. All computers are built differently so of course speed tests will vary from machine to machine!

Cons: With no dust cover/cap for the USB end it will be prone to picking up lint, dirt etc. if carried in pockets or a purse frequently!

Overall Review: Overall this is a great flash drive, and probably could even be used as a boot device with an operating system installed if you’re into that stuff. Of course it will never be as fast as a hard drive, but there are plenty of uses for this flash drive!

Pros: Real world sustained read speed of 180 MB/s, as well as a 60 MB/s write speed on large file transfers when connected to a USB 3.0 port. + Functional slider feature which makes it easy to insert into a USB port without the USB drive trying to slide back into closed position. The same cannot be said for some of the competitor slider USB drives. + The overall compact size doesn’t interfere with adjacent USB ports on common motherboards as well as laptop computers. + Activity light is same turquoise color as part of the body. It’s only on (flashes) when there’s activity and the brightness of the LED isn’t overpowering. + Included is a 5-year warranty for the drive.

Cons: + The drive comes preformatted as FAT32 which has a maximum file size limit of 4GB. Even though this maximizes compatibility between PCs, it should be reformatted to exFAT or NTFS to allow for larger file sizes. + The outer casing of the USB drive should be been made out of metal since it doesn’t do an adequate job to dissipate heat during large file transfers over USB 3.0 ports. SuperTalent ST2 line of USB 3.0 drives as an example feature aluminum casings just for that purpose. + The activity LED should have been configured to stay on while the drive is plugged in and flash during activity instead of being off when idle. As an added safety factor, when using the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ feature within Windows, the LED would then turn off completely indicating that the drive is powered off and can be removed with no problem.

Overall Review: I would have liked to see the inclusion of NAND flash specification in order to determine the write durability on the drive. Again using SuperTalent ST2 as an example, specifies NAND flash being MLC. Overall the Corsair Slider X2 is a good all-around performer, and if you need a 64GB hard drive which has a very speedy file read performance, then this drive is one to seriously consider.

Pros: Very fast. Very small No cap to lose.

Cons: Gets toasty when heavily used. A bit on the pricy side USB connector is exposed even when closed, so debris could get in the connector, or keys or something could damage the pins. No lanyard.

Overall Review: As with most storage devices, as file sizes decrease, so does performance, with the write speed taking the largest hit. You can see this clearly with Disk Mark. Here are 2 tests, the first using a 50mb sample file size, and the second with a 4gb file: Test : 50 MB [F: 0.0% (0.0/59.6 GB)] (x3) Sequential Read : 163.303 MB/s Sequential Write : 28.498 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 106.145 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 32.190 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 4.528 MB/s [ 1105.4 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.698 MB/s [ 170.4 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.274 MB/s [ 799.3 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.776 MB/s [ 189.4 IOPS] - temperature after this test - 125 degrees Fahrenheit -- Test : 4000 MB [F: 0.0% (0.0/59.6 GB)] (x3) Sequential Read : 202.957 MB/s Sequential Write : 145.021 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 141.980 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 0.504 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 6.533 MB/s [ 1594.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.038 MB/s [ 9.2 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 6.755 MB/s [ 1649.1 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.039 MB/s [ 9.5 IOPS] - temperature after this test - 120 degrees Fahrenheit Next I did some real world tests by copying blocks of files from a RAM disk to and from this drive: 1) Copy large files (1.5 - 2.5 GB each) - to USB drive - 122MB/s - from USB drive - 177MB/s - temperature after this test - 106 degrees Fahrenheit 2) Copy medium files (100 MB each) - to USB drive - 112MB/s - from USB drive - 181MB/s - temperature after this test - 108 degrees Fahrenheit 3) Copy a "normal" directory (7gb / 12,000 files) - to USB drive - 9.1MB/s - from USB drive - 105MB/s - temperature after this test - 141 degrees Fahrenheit 4) Format device (exFAT, default allocation size) - 7m 30s (92.5 MB.s) - temperature after this test - 161 degrees Fahrenheit I had no problem formatting this device at USB3.0 speeds, nor did I see any indication that the device was experiencing any trauma from the elevated temperatures. Perhaps constant read/writes (like using it as a scratch disk) would cause this, but under my real-world tests, it performed as expected.

Pros: The Corsair Voyager Slider X2 64GB flash drive comes in a simple package. The device is about average size for a USB Device and can be slid open and closed. Included with the device is a Warranty against defects notification. Transfer speeds (my experience going from SATA 3 SSD to and from Voyager on USB 3.0) 1 large file (24GB) sat around 127 MB/s Write 186 MB/s Read Many small files (Ranged from 4k-3MB) sat around 1.5 MB/s Write 10 MB/s Read

Cons: The Corsair Voyager Slider X2 64GB flash drive gets very hot when in continuous use on a USB 3.0 connection. I am unable to complete a full format of the device on a USB 3.0 connection. It will finish a full format on USB 2.0 and is not near as hot so that may be part of the issue. The device is unable to finish a sustained copy of a 48 GB file (I didn’t let it cool down after the copy and delete of a 24GB file).

Overall Review: The device can run a sustained copy of many small files without overheating. If you don’t plan on using this device for sustained read/write of large files it will probably work just fine for you. If you plan to use it for a lot of large file transfers you may want to look else ware. After a full format Windows 8 show 59.6GB of available space.