SanDisk 16GB Micro Cruzer - Retail Pack

SanDisk make great flashdrives, as they have some of the quickest write and read speed on the market. This one currently goes over twice the speed of my other flashdrive I use. It makes transferring large files or a large number of files across a lot quicker and less painful timewise.

The retractable usb connector is a nice little feature, and helps against any possible damage. The weight of this is incredibily light, and feels like im holding nothing when in my hand. A nice orange glow appears from the flashdrive when it is connected, so you can clearly see it in use.

This flashdive comes with software called U3, which mean you are able to install and run programs directly off the drive. This is a handy feature if you use particular programs and you use another computer which doesnt have it, if you had it installed on your flashdrive you could use it anywhere. Having 16gbs also helps as there is plenty of space for extra programs.

Overall a great buy, and recommended.

If you wish to use the SanDisk CruzerSync software to store and synchronise your data, there are a few things you should know:

1) The drive is formatted as FAT32 and has two partitions. The first is for the U3 system and is only 6.6Mb. The second is the storage area and starts off as just under 15GB approx.

2) If you wish to use the CruzerSync software to keep your data synchronised and encrypted, do NOT manually copy and paste items on to the storage partition of the drive yourself using Windows Explorer! If you do, manually copied items will not be encrypted or synchronised - UNLESS you add the storage partition to your "profile"! But adding the storage partition of your drive to your "profile" as well as selecting those folders from your computer will result in those files being copied twice - and will therefore use double the disk space on your USB drive!

3) Instead start up CruzerSync and set up your "profile", selecting all the folders you want it to keep synchronised and it will encrypt them and copy them all over onto the storage partition of the drive.

4) But do select your folders VERY CAREFULLY using the Adavanced Option when setting up your profile in CruzerSync! If not, it will attempt to copy ALL your personal files and folders from your computer onto the drive! Also, if you just leave the tick against Documents, it will copy over everything - including the contents of the recycle bin!

5) You do NOT need to select your "favourites" folder as the CruzerSync picks this up automatically - wherever it may be stored on your computer.

6) But only Outlook works seamlessly with CruzerSync. So if you use Outlook Express or Windows Mail, you will have to navigate to and add your Contacts folder to your "profile" manually.

7) BUT CruzerSync will NOT automatically add and synchronise any new sub-folders you add to any main folder you have selected in your "profile". You must add them manually from the Options menu!

8) Nor can you DELETE any folders from your Sync Options list once you have selected them in your "profile"! Just un-checking the folders in the Options list will NOT remove them from your synchronised items!

9) BUT *** WARNING *** Any items that you mark for deletion in CruzerSync WILL ALSO BE DELETED FROM THEIR ORIGINAL FOLDERS ON YOUR COMPUTER!!!
I discovered this to my cost and horror before realising that this would be the case - so I lost several files and since they do are NOT put into your main Recycle bin, there is no easy way to retrieve them!

10) Disk space on the STORAGE PARTIITON of the flash drive seems to be slowly eaten up every time you choose to start again (by Resetting the Data from the Tools menu)! This is because nothing you delete from a USB Flash drive is ever actually deleted. Old files are just hidden and will therefore still take up disk space even if you delete them! And the only way I can see to recover lost disk space is by formatting the STORAGE PARTITION of the drive and starting afresh.

Cheap and cheerful device (£17.99), here are some tested speeds:

Writing speed 5.5MBytes/s
Reading speed 22Mbytes/s

Is not the fastest out there but is certainly one of the Cheapest.

This is a U3 device and it comes with the usual Skype, McAfee and Signup Shield Passwords.

Made by SanDisk you are rest assured that is not a fake. Fully tested using H2testw.