Corsair Flash Survivor (16GB) review: Corsair Flash Survivor (16GB)

Presumably army officers need memory sticks, because we'd be hard pressed to guess who else needs the Corsair Flash Survivor, given that the Corsair Flash Voyager is already rugged enough for most consumers. Still, if the idea of swinging an aluminium casing from your neck with the included Corsair dog tag appeals to you, look no further.

9.0

Corsair Flash Survivor (16GB)

The Good

Possibly the most protected flash drive ever. Huge capacity. Water resistant up to 200m. Very generous warranty.

The Bad

Might damage furniture when dropped.

The Bottom Line

Corsair's Survivor is a flash drive that's nigh on impervious, and sports 200m water resistance.

Design/Features
Housed in a cylindrical aluminium casing, the USB stick is accessed by unscrewing the rubber-gripped, water-sealed end. Yes, this thing is water resistant up to 200m, so perhaps secret agents who need to access their critical data after a quick scuba through the ocean would do well with the Survivor too. We completely expect this thing to turn up in the next Bond movie.

A USB extension cable is included, as is the encryption software "TrueCrypt", which allows you to create an entire virtual encrypted disk on the drive, further adding to the spy theory. It's available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB editions, the 8GB also coming in a GT version with faster read and write speeds.

Performance
Surprisingly the Survivor managed to outperform the Voyager, bringing back a 31.6MB/s read speed. We found this surprising, assuming that they'd use the same internal circuitry.

While it won't bounce like the Voyager and so may dent some furniture when dropped, you can be pretty assured that in the consumer space memory sticks don't get tougher than this. Just like the Voyager, it comes equipped with a huge 10 year warranty.

If you happen to be Wolverine, a super spy, or just someone who absolutely needs data to stay intact, you can't pass this one up.