Corsair Flash Survivor 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSBSRVR-32GB

by Corsair

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0011WSQCK
• Item model number: CMFUSBSRVR-32GB
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

32GB FLASH SURVIVOR FLASH DRIVE

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Speedy reads, slow writes, but rock solid, May 16, 2008

By 

M. Terretta (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Corsair Flash Survivor 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSBSRVR-32GB (Personal Computers)

Purchased this for use with a MacBook Pro. As formatted from the factory, it was fast for reading any kind of files, and for writing large (multi-megabyte) files, but painfully slow for writing many small files. Benchmarking tools (and most online reviews) don't appear to pick up this random small file problem.

Since I don't need to use it in a Windows environment, I reformatted the device as a Mac OS Journaled GUID partition, and the write speeds improved somewhat. I then created a 31 GB "sparse bundle" image on it, which is a OS X "Leopard" technology that makes a growable disk image of many 8 MB chunks. This seemed to accelerate writes significantly, but still nowhere near the maker's claimed write performance.

For Mac users who have no plans to plug it into a PC, I recommend reformatting it. As a bonus, if you create a sparse bundle disk image, you can set that disk image to be AES-128 or AES-256 encrypted, giving you peace of mind in case you lose or misplace the USB drive.

I'm very happy with the apparent durability, and very happy with the read speed. I'm less happy with the write speed, but since I'm using it for write-once/read-many type of backups, it's okay.

Note that flash memory technology for sizes 8 GB and up is different than the 4 GB and smaller drives, and all manufacturers making this size seem to share this "slow for small files" problem when doing "real world" file tests instead of benchmarks.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dreadfully slow and unacceptable, July 18, 2008

By 

B. Waiss (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Corsair Flash Survivor 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSBSRVR-32GB (Personal Computers)

I've been a big fan of Corsair as I have their dominator memory in my rendering rig... but this Survivor 32gig is the biggest piece of garbage I've set my hands on.

The first one I had was so dreadfully slow it was taking around 6 hours to copy 18 gigs and then crashed. It had all the symptoms that everyone else has been complaining about online... do your homework. So I RMA'd it to Corsair and it took another week and a half to get another which appears to be even slower.

I've had it. I'm returning it to for a refund. It completely infuriates me that companies will produce such garbage with no consideration for people's time. I expect a product to work, and don't have 6 hours to waste testing their product... they should have invested in a little Quality Assurance on this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars End the USB through the wash blues., May 29, 2009

By 

Brian J. S. Chee (Kaneohe, HI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Corsair Flash Survivor 32 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSBSRVR-32GB (Personal Computers)

I bought this out of self defense after I sent my third USB flash drive through the washer and dryer. My only wish for this is a short cable to connect the cover to the unit to make it harder to lose the case. Without the case this is just another USB drive made out of aluminum. Durable but no longer waterproof.

Otherwise great drive and survives just about anything I can throw at it, including being run over by an electric cart (accident) when setting up at a trade show.