Corsair Flash Survivor GT

We’ve used too many Jack Bauer references lately, but c’mon, how could we review this key and not say it’s the one Jackie boy would use?

The 8GB Flash Survivor GT, after all, is shock and water resistant—and if your service automatic runs out of ammo, you can even fling its hard aluminum body at someone’s head. But how does it perform?

Quite well, actually. Older keys can deliver great speeds with medium and large files but are painfully slow when transferring small ones. The Survivor GT, however, is speedy with all file sizes in both reading and writing tests. So if you need to copy that PowerPoint presentation off of Salazar’s laptop before the building explodes, this is the thumb drive for you. The Survivor GT handily beats the original Flash Voyager GT in all our read and write tests.

We also tested the Survivor by dunking it in boiling water, freezing it, flinging it against a concrete wall, burning it with a butane torch, dropping it down four flights of stairs, and attaching it to a car muffler during a lunch outing, and it, well, survived. It didn’t look pretty in the end, but the data was still intact.

Not all is perfect with the Survivor though. Our unit, like others from Corsair, didn’t include any bundled encryption software, although it is supposed to ship with TrueCrypt freeware. Other small problems: One rubber grip wasn’t glued on the unit, and the device made an annoying squeaking noise when closing—not good if two dozen ninjas are parked inside the room you’re about to enter. Still, if speed and durability are your top concerns, we can’t imagine getting a key that’s any tougher than this baby.