Customer Reviews

SanDisk Cruzer Contour 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SDCZ8-016G-A75

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I get 27MB/s read speed and 19MB/s write speed which means it is actually faster than expected. The sliding retractable connector is my favorite part because no cap can ever be lost. It is enhanced for Windows® Vista(tm) ReadyBoost(tm) and includes U3 software. Data encryption is also available. It is very handy and the included leather pouch can be attached to a keyring or lanyard. I'm very satisfied with it.

I bought this to run Ubuntu 8.10 on. It installed faster than other flash drives I have tried. Ubuntu ran very smoothly from it, even though I enabled home directory encryption. The only gripes about it that I have are: (1) It's very large compared to SanDisk's TItanium (2) Sometimes it's hard to open and close it. It would have been very helpful if it came with a short extension cord, I am sometimes afraid that due to it's weight it will fall out of the USB port, or due to it's length I might hit it loose.

The SanDisk SDCZ8-016G-A75 16GB Cruzer Contour is a great product. I immediately replaced the lanyard. The pros: are it's huge, 16 Gig provided all the room I need to carry important programs and documents anywhere I go.

The Cons: The Cruzer will close while inserting the unit into a PC if you press the back of the unit and not the steel case; this a a bit picky and I've gotten used to the problem but one machine I worked on had only rear facing USB ports.. I was just about to boot the PC before I got the Cruzer plugged in.

Finally, the unit should come with a small USB port extender, the unit is a bit larger that most and it can be hard to get the unit into a tight place, one of those 3 inch extension cords would be great. I had one from a previous SanDisk product.

I just received my 16gb Sandisk Contour replacing my loaded 8gb Sandisk Cruzer. From experience using the 8gb Contour, I knew that it would be much larger than my Cruzer, somewhat unwieldy because of the ill-conceived retractable cap, and inconvenient because of the lack of an easily identifiable colorful lanyard. I needed speed however, and current reviews of earlier versions of the Contour and my previous experience indicated that this thing was fast. I could put up with the other shortcomings for a significant speed increase. Here are the results of my first tests.

Using Second Copy (simple copy) and my 8gb cruzer I copied 4.28gb of various small files (6,597 in all) both to each USB drive and from each to the hard drive.

Upload time -- Cruzer -- 26.5 minutes (2.69 mb/sec)
Upload time -- Contour - 22.0 minutes (3.24 mb/sec)

Download time -- Cruzer -- 5.5 minutes (13.0 mb/sec)
Download time -- Contour - 5.5 minutes (13.0 mb/sec)

I have no idea where I got the idea that the Contour was faster than the Cruzer but it was basically a dead heat.

To be fair, a backup (upload) of changed files (50 in all, size unknown) was done in 1.5 minutes using the Cruzer and 1.1 minutes using the Contour. Is the speed difference only noticable when synchronizing a small group of files?

If anyone can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

I've tried several brands of flash drive, and the Cruzer Countour is the fastest one I've found. Unlike many other cheaper brands which won't advertise their speed, this Contour works as advertised and is what I needed to transfer large files without falling asleep in the process. While opening and closing the device takes a little getting used to, it's nice to be able to forget about losing the cap.

This product is one of the smallest bigest things you'll ever own. I fit four 1 1/2hour movies on it and still have room to keep my work on it. This product is worth the money.

First thing I noticed when it arrived is that this drive is much bigger than I expected. Because of the design of the retractable USB adapter, this drive is about twice as long as it should be. It is a very elegant appearance, though its really too big to attach to your key chain. The next problem I had was that Vista did not recognize this as a ReadyBoost compatible drive. This was one of the main attributes that made me select this drive. A call to SanDisk support was useless. They said call Amazon for a replacement... I haven't done that yet. Other than these issues, the drive does what its supposed to do. With 16GB I don't worry much about running out of space.

I researched a ton of flash drives before buying and found this flash drive to be very highly recommended. It opens and closes by sliding it with your thumb and fingers. It was a little stiff at first but loosened up after a few uses and now opens and closes great. It came with a small case that I hook to my keychain and carry it with me everywhere. The case is vinyl, and mine will probably need to be replaced in the next year or so but it's still holding together.

The metal casing on the flash drive is very durable and I don't have any concern with it getting damaged banging around in my pocket. I lost a bunch of work on my last cheapo flash drive. This one cost around 50 bucks and was totally worth it. I've had it a couple of years now with no problems at all, and use it frequently. The speed is great and I'm completely satisfied with it. If you need a durable flash drive, this one is for you.

Life's lessons so far... don't buy cheap tape, and don't buy shoddy flash drives.

This is my 3rd time at purchasing the 16GB Sandisk Contour. I buy them because they have a lifetime warranty and for the size. The only negative about these are the door hung up on one of them and would not close. I can't ding them for the way they open and close because I knew this before buying. Some may like but I don't but I also don't like caps that get lost. They do work very well for me and that is why I keep buying them.

Having used the 8GB version for over a year I upgraded to this one recently as my main backup for my work files. It seems just a touch slower than the 8GB model but still quite fast. Very dependable, no lost files or strange data quirks that I have found. However, the drive is relatively large, has no way to attach a lanyard (hence the nice leather pouch that comes with it) and is heavy due to steel back. Comes with useful U3 software for backup and running apps from drive. All in, it is more than worth the money -- and it is one of the best looking drives out there - but less convenient to use than cruzer micro or rally2 (which I also own). Also the plug tends to retract if you have a tight usb port to push into (you learn to hold the sides awkwardly to prevent this).