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Travel provides many wondrous opportunities to see sights and hear sounds that one might want to record with digital photo, video, or audio recording. While most devices come with some internal storage, there is the possibility that one might want to offload them to external storage for safekeeping. For this purpose, I bring you the Corsair Survivor GTR. This USB flash drive promises both near-indestructibility and extremely high performance. Corsair was kind enough to provide me with the 32GB version of the drive for testing purposes.

Features

Included with the drive is a USB cable and a metal chain long enough to allow the drive to be worn around the neck. The chain also comes with a rubber-edged aluminum dog tag with the Corsair logo on it, though I’m not really sure why that particular item was included beyond branding. Here are the specs:

Weight: 1.6oz.

Dimensions: 3.3” long 0.9” in diameter

USB 2.0

Waterproof to 200m

Shock and vibration resistant

Limited 10-year warranty

Casing made of anodized aircraft-grade aluminum

Up to 34MB/s read and 28MB/s write speed

Capacity: 32GB or 64GB

The cylinder you see above is the outer casing of this extraordinarily rugged item. The actual flash drive is revealed when one end of the cylinder is unscrewed. In the hand, the closed drive feels incredibly solid, very much like some of the high-end flashlights I’ve reviewed. The screw cap works smoothly and the rubber parts are all fitted nicely to the aluminum body. The drive itself (inside the shell) is made of plastic and affixed to the inside of the end cap of the shell.

One downside is that the drive is secured into the cap by plastic pins and comes a bit loose after use causing it to rattle when closed. Another minor flaw is that the Survivor GTR does not include hardware encryption, so if you want your data to be secure, you’re going to have to get a software solution of some sort.

Testing

Before I started stress testing, I decided to test the data speeds and found the performance of the Survivor GTR to be quite satisfactory with actual sustained write operations coming in at 22-24MB/s and read operations considerably faster at 32MB/s. This makes it one of the faster flash drives available.

In regards to stress testing, the Survivor GTR is a pretty tough item so I showed no sympathy. I soaked it in water for 24 hours and observed no leakage. I ran it over multiple times with an SUV, and even parked on top of it. It just sat there. I threw it off of a three story building onto concrete. Five times. It just bounced. I even froze it in a block of ice, cracked the ice on a sidewalk, and then used it. It worked just fine. To put it simply, the thing would not die. Of course, this all was done with it safely sealed inside its hard candy shell. Once out of that shell, the Survivor GTR is just another plastic-covered flash drive, so if you’re going to stomp on it or use it as a deadly weapon, be sure it’s fully sealed first.

Conclusion

This is the most indestructible data storage device I’ve ever seen. If you need someplace to store your data while on the road, diving, jumping off of tall things, or doing otherwise potentially destructive activities, this is the flash drive for you. It’s fast, it’s indestructible and it’s small. Just keep in mind its indestructibility does not translate to security.

32GB $89.99

64GB $159.99

http://www.corsair.com/products/survivor/default.aspx

© Nick Atlas

So you’re going to be away from home for a month or two on that epic trip you’ve always wanted to take. You’re going to be crawling through jungles, climbing mountains, navigating cities in unfamiliar countries, and generally being away from the things you usually take for granted. Still, you may want to be able to make a call when you’ve got cell phone signal. You might want to navigate via GPS. It’s possible that you’ll want to have a handy translator in your pocket. You might even want to drop an email to friends back home or find some information on the web. Even with all of those possible wants, the prospect of lugging a delicate, bulky, and awkward laptop around with you for a month probably doesn’t appeal. Enter the CN3 Handheld Computer from Intermec.

If you’re not looking to take you entire CD collection on your trip, then the ultra compact iriver T30 MP3 player should work for you. The T30 is part of iriver’s ultra portable line of media players, available in 512MB and 1GB versions.