OCZ Diesel 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (OCZUSBDSL)

by OCZ

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches ; 0.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001BHUJ5M
• Item model number: OCZUSBDSL4G
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Fuel your computing experience with the OCZ Diesel Flash Drive. With plenty of room for all our favorite songs, photos, and documents when you¿re on the go, the Diesel offers up to 16GB of storage for your traveling data. For the mobilized student or professional, the OCZ Diesel is a sleek, sturdy, and affordable flash drive that gets the job done and offers the reliability you expect from OCZ Technology. Available in an array of capacities to suit your personalized needs for storage, the OCZ Diesel is available in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, and incredible 16GB.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Faster than average for an inexpensive flash drive, October 3, 2009

By 

E. A. Johnson (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: OCZ Diesel 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (OCZUSBDSL) (Personal Computers)

I was looking for a flash drive large enough to load a bootable image onto and fast enough that it wouldn't take a year to do so without having to spend much money. After some research, I decided to go with this drive and I think it represents a good choice for an inexpensive, but reasonably fast drive. I'll give some speed comparisons in a moment. First, here are a few other impressions I thought would be worth mentioning.
1) The body of the drive feels very solidly built. It doesn't feel at all like a cheap little thing made of thin plastic housings like many flash drives I've handled.
2) Unfortunately, the little lanyard ring on the back is pretty thin and feels like it would be easy to break.
3) The plastic cap is only slightly tight on the connector and would probably fall off pretty often if you kept the drive in your pants pocket. It also won't snap onto the rear of the drive at all, so when you take it off, you have to keep track of the little, clear piece of plastic very carefully if you don't want to lose it. Then again, USB cables don't come with little caps on the connectors and you don't spend all day worrying about whether or not they're going to get dirty and stop working...

So, the above average body construction is contrasted by some poor design choices on the cap and lanyard loop, in my opinion. For me, it's not a big deal because I just keep the drive in a pocket of my laptop case, but, if you want to carry it around on you all the time, those issues may prove troublesome.

I have been pleased with the speed of the drive given the low price point. Here are benchmark results for this drive (the 4 GB OCZ Diesel) from CrystalDiskMark 2.2 with a 100 MB test size:
Sequential Read : 21.326 MB/s
Sequential Write : 5.352 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 21.236 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.772 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 5.793 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.021 MB/s

For comparison, here are the results for a freebie generic flash drive I got at a conference a while back:
Sequential Read : 12.471 MB/s
Sequential Write : 2.260 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 12.468 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.383 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 5.467 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.027 MB/s

As one last comparison, here are the results I found in an online review for the supposedly super-fast Patriot Xporter XT 4 GB drive:
Sequential Read : 30.320 MB/s
Sequential Write : 11.550 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 30.360 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 3.208 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 5.888 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.015 MB/s

Overall, I'm happy with this purchase. It meets my requirements of giving me markedly better performance than a run-of-the-mill generic flash drive and I spent less than ten bucks for it. If you need something more rugged or need even more speed than it offers, the Patriot drive looks to be one of the best choices out there, but it costs about twice as much money.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works as advertised, January 8, 2009

By 

Gabriel's Buddy (Carrboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: OCZ Diesel 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (OCZUSBDSL) (Personal Computers)

Inexpensive, good looking, high capacity, and fast. The body feels as if it is made of metal.

My vista machine accepts it as a readyboost drive and the speeds are noticably faster than my prior USB drive (a PNY micro).

I am sure I will lose the cap soon.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived quickly and in perfect condition, June 2, 2009

By 

Melanie M. (Central Coast, California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: OCZ Diesel 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (OCZUSBDSL) (Personal Computers)

This is my second DIESEL flash drive. I'm not really sure how you could screw one of these up but they're a great brand and I will continue to buy DIESEL whenever I need a flash drive.