| 25 OCTOBER 2005 |
| OCZ
Rally 2GB USB Flash Drive |
With the abundant number of USB
drives available on the market, it can be difficult
differentiating one from another. Typically, we try to
review USB flash drives that we think are unique in design and
looks which set itself apart from many other products.
While the design and look of a product does matter a lot to a
consumer, the OCZ Rally USB 2.0 flash drive's main focus is
performance.
OCZ Technology is a manufacturer that specializes in high
quality memory for your computer. They offer high quality
memory whether you are an enthusiast gamer or a consumer in need
of more RAM for their computer. With their experience
working with memory, they were able to apply it and use it in
the application of a USB flash drive. Unlike your typical
USB flash drive, the OCZ rally makes use of Dual Channel
technology which translates into faster transfer speeds.
Let's find out how well this performs compared with other USB
flash drives.
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The OCZ Rally came in a very simple
plastic container packaging. The USB drive can be seen
right at the front. The packaging emphasizes the features
of the product such as dual channel technology, the use of USB
2.0, and a lifetime warranty. A lifetime warranty is a
great asset if you are a heavy user of flash drives. If
for some reason the product fails, you can just return it back
to OCZ Technology and get a new one. This product also advertises fast
speeds of up to 23 Megabytes per second when reading.
If you are aware of the types of
memory for computers, you might have noticed that there is
regular DDR memory and there is Dual Channel DDR memory.
Dual Channel memory makes use of technology that doubles the
bandwidth of the memory. More bandwidth, basically means
more throughput in data which generally results in faster
speeds. We'll find out how well this drive performs later
in this review. |
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There's nothing particularly special
in terms of the overall design because it is your typical gum
stick design. Since this drive is
composed of a thin aluminium frame, it was cool to the touch
when I first picked it up. The front of the drive clearly
labels the company and product name while displaying the drive's
capacity. The drive is completely black in color and uses
white color for the labels.
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One would have to have a look
at this in person to really grasp the size of this drive.
The drive is extremely light when picked up. In fact, I'd
say this is just as thin or thinner than a Sandisk Cruzer Micro,
one of Sandisk's smaller USB drives. I have placed a
quarter next to the OCZ Rally in order for you to help you
understand it's overall size.
In order to access the USB connector, you just pull off the
small cap. The cap only goes on top one way even though it
is symmetrical. Unfortunately, you are unable to attach
the cap to the bottom of the drive or stick it somewhere,
therefore, you will have to either be mindful where you place
the cap or just not use the cap at all.
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For those
occasions where a USB port may be difficult to access or simply
is too far from where you'd like to use the USB flash drive, an
extension cable has been provided. The extension USB cable
is approximately 1.5 feet in length, therefore, you are limited
to the length you can extend your USB port.
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A long strap has been provided as
well as a very small keychain ring that you can attach to the
drive. The strap is intended to go around your neck making
it easy to carry it around with you. When you need to
quickly use the drive, you can quickly detach the drive from the
strap and reattach it when you need to.
It is very easy to use the drive. All you have to do is
plug in the flash drive in a USB port. Windows XP should
be able to automatically detect and install the drive without
having to touch your keyboard. From then on, you are ready
to transfer files to the drive. When the drive is plugged
in, there is a blue LED at the bottom of the drive that lights
up. It also blinks when the drive is in use transferring
files. After transferring files, the drive did feel warm,
but it was nothing to be concerned about.
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I first used HDTach to test the read
speed of the drive. The drive was able to reach a burst
speed of 25MB per second at first, but then quickly dropped to a
constant 13.9MB per second. This speed is faster than your
typical USB flash drive. When comparing these results to
the Sandisk Cruzer Titanium, Sandisk's fastest USB flash drive,
these results are on par when comparing it with that drive.
The drive was tested in HDTach using both a Quick (8MB) and Long
(32MB) file test. The results turned out to be nearly the
same either way. The benchmark picture shown above was
done using a 'Quick' benchmark.
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With a 2GB for a flash drive, I can
expect many users to be transferring larger files. When
using Sisoft's Sandra flash memory benchmark, the drive was able
to obtain a read speed of 22.8MB per second for its read
performance which is also on par with OCZ's advertised "up to
23MB/sec read speeds".
Next, I did some real world testing
of the drive. General benchmark numbers give a good sense
of the performance of the drive, but sometimes it is difficult
to visualize or know how well a drive really performs. I
created three different folders composed of a certain size and
different amount of files. The first folder contained
MP3's approximately 5-8MB each and contained a total of 100
Megabytes worth. I used a stopwatch and started timing
from the moment I clicked 'Copy' until the copy transferring
window disappears. This first 100MB folder of MP3's was
able to transfer in a quick 11.36 seconds. The second
folder contained a total of 1GB composed of several 175MB video
files. This folder was able to copy to the drive in 1
minute and 35 seconds. The last folder also had a total of
1GB and was composed of a single image file. It was able
to transfer in 1 minute and 27 seconds.
Typically, I have seen most flash
drives at least include some kind of backup software or
synchronization software. Unfortunately, the OCZ Rally
does not come with any software preloaded onto the flash disk.
It was completely blank.
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The OCZ Rally is an excellent
product that manages to fit a 2GB capacity in a smaller package
than expected. While the drive was able to easily reach a
burst speed of 23MB per second, keep in mind that this is a
burst read speed. When transferring large files, the drive
is capable of transferring 1GB of information in a mere 1 minute
and 30 seconds.
In this review, I mentioned that this drive was on par with Sandisk's fastest USB drive, the Cruzer Titanium. Looking
at PriceGrabber.com, a website used for comparing prices among
online retailers, the OCZ 2GB Rally can be bought for $120.
However, the comparable Sandisk Cruzer Titanium sells for around
$150. The OCZ Rally offers a simple package that includes
everything you need while offering you the blazing performance
and price that you can expect from OCZ Technology. I
would have liked to see OCZ Technology include some kind of
backup or synchronization software with the product.
Either way, the very small OCZ Rally flash drive gets the job
done.
Reviewed by
ronald@digitalreviews.net
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