1.0 Introduction

Whether you refer to it as a pen drive, jump drive, thumb drive, key drive, or memory stick, you have to admit, the USB Flash drive is pretty darn cool. Just stick it into the USB port on your computer and within a few seconds a new drive appears on your desktop. So simple and so easy. What makes them so good is that they have a spate of desirable features such as no need for batteries, solid state storage, good transfer speeds, durability, portability, and expected data retention of ten years. All of these features allow these little babies to practically replace the floppy, the Zip disk, and the CD-R/RW all in one fell swoop.

When we started this review, we only had an inkling of what we might come up with. By the time we finished, our perception that USB drives were a commodity was completely erased. While every USB Flash drive is essentially the same in that they carry data, they are all slightly different and not every drive will meet everyone's needs. Among the various model on market we have chased the Crucial Gizmo! 1Gb USB2.0 Pen Drive.

Crucial is part of Micron, the largest DRAM manufacturer in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. Because they actually manufacture memory, they have unparalleled expertise in the upgrade industry. Crucial is the only consumer memory upgrade supplier that is part of a major DRAM manufacturer. Among the Crucial’s product there are a large variety of Memory Modules, Flash Cards and readers, Flash Drives (the Gizmo’s line) and some graphic cards based on different ATI’s chipset. According to Bizrate.com, completely independent customer satisfaction rating site where customers enter positive or negative comments about their experiences with online retailers, Crucial ranks the elite "Circle of Excellence" Platinum Award winners! (2003 and 2004).

Gizmo! Pen Drive 1Gb Specifications

General

• Small form factor (68 mm by 20 mm) so multiple drives fit into neighboring USB ports;

• LED indicates when data is transferring;

• Plug and Play;

• Windows ME, 2000, XP support;

• Mac OS 8.6 and above support;

• Available USB 1.1 or 2.0 port;

• Multilingual user guide.

Official informations from the manufacturer

The Crucial Gizmo! stylishly designed, matted silver case is only 68mm x 20mm, small enough to allow multiple drives to simultaneously plug into neighboring USB ports. A convenient carrying lanyard is connected to the base of the device, and a green LED indicates when data is being transferred.

A true Plug and Play solution, the Gizmo! drive automatically appears as a removable drive when plugged in to the USB port of a desktop PC, Macintosh, or notebook-it's even compatible with Linux 2.4.8 and up. To achieve maximum speed capabilities, the Gizmo! drive requires a 2.0 USB port and an operating system supporting USB 2.0, or it will operate at original USB speeds. Each Gizmo! drive comes with the following:

• Lanyard;

• Multilingual user guide;

• Limited lifetime warranty;

• Free shipping to the UK on orders over £25;

• Crucial's renowned customer service and free technical support.

The Crucial Gizmo! drive is available on Crucial's Web site in the following densities: 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB.

In the next page we will give a visual inspection of this sample.

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Visual Inspection

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