OCZ OCZUSBATV32G 32 GB ATV USB Flash Drive
by OCZ Technology
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of OCZ OCZUSBATV32G 32 GB ATV USB Flash Drive
Customer Review: Poor Performance, Don't Count on Ever Seeing Rebate
Summary: 2 Stars
As a computer science professor I carry a huge number of resources around with me from class to class. The quality of portable storage is very important to me, and I have used 20+ different devices for this over the past many years. Based on my experience, I strongly encourage others to stay away from this device.
Immediately before using this device, I used the Corsair 16 GB Flash Survivor for over a year as my primary portable device. Although its shape was a bit odd, the overall "package" and performance of the device was strong. When I moved to this 32 GB drive I was shocked at how much slower the performance was. It is not unusual for a simple process like saving a Word document to the disk to take 20 seconds. Transferring larger files is even more painfully slow. Both read and write operations perform equally poor. Forget about trying to run an application from the device. There is no comparison at all between the speed of my old 16 GB drive from this company and this newer device.
Secondly, if you are planning to redeem a rebate from OCZ related to this purchase: beware. You may never see your rebate. Go to their company web site, visit the forums, and prepare to be amazed. I bought my device in early August 2008 and promptly mailed the rebate form. As of mid-October, I have received no communication other than an email over a month ago saying that my submission was received for processing. When I attempt to track the rebate in the online system, I am told that the rebate was rejected (no reasons stated) and I will receive a letter saying why by the end of November. OCZ outsources their rebate processing and apparently (based on the multitude of reports) cares very little about how this is actually handled.
Customer Review: Don't trust benchmarks
Summary: 3 Stars
+ Pretty good storage space for the price when considering the advantages of a flash stick (drop/impact resistant, small, fits inside a thermos I keep inside a fire safe - the thermos for extra fire/heat/smoke/water protection)
+ The unit seems physically robust (tight rubber case, not a lot of mass to contribute to drop damage)
+/- Okay read speeds if you use it for that very often (installing software, listening to MP3s, or using ReadyBoost)
- Slow write speeds if you do a lot of data backups and/or real-world file copies to the unit
Benchmarks for this unit were vastly wrong in their write speed measurements... not sure why, maybe the manufacturers design these type of devices to trick them or maybe the benchmarks don't take flash's quirks into account.
For writing large files (a bunch of MP3s in a row copied with explorer) I'm seeing about 2.5MB/sec. For writing small files (a bunch of documents, etc. in a row copied with explorer) I'm seeing about 1MB/sec. Overall it's taking 3-5 hours to copy about 26GB of data to the drive.
This is actually close to the speed I was seeing with a generic (Super Flash Drive) 8GB flash stick I bought a couple years ago... though it was obviously smaller (though the 32GB is smaller physically).
Anyway, I'm not using this thing for every day primary storage, I'm using it for weekly incremental backups, so it's not often that I need to copy more than 100MB at a time, so the write speed is secondary to me (but I am disappointed that it was much slower than indicated by various people running benchmarks). In the other aspects (storage space, physical size, robustness) this unit meets my needs.
Customer Review: Fabulous and huge usb flash memory drive
Summary: 5 Stars
I have recently tried USB flash memory drives from Adata (8 Gb, with a standard connector), Kingston (8 Gb Green retractable version, DT-110), Corsair (16 Gb metal encased Survivor with 256 bit encryption capability) and now the OCZ ATV 32 Gb rubber-encased drive. Of all these I definitely prefer the OCZ for its huge size and reliability as well as its durability and small physical size to boot. Next, I liked the quite new Kingston retractable unit. If the DT-110 was currently produced with a larger capacity I probably would have purchased that one first since the connector is totally protected when not in use. I didn't like the Corsair at all and it was way too large in my opinion, but well protected. The Adata unit died after 7 months of relatively light usage.
The OCZ isn't a total speed demon, but I just work on other items while it is working to back up my 70 Gb Hard drive which is only about 1/2 used (most of my useful hard to replace data is capable of being easily stored by the OCZ ATV in < 2 hours).
It has a nice holder that is physically attached to the unit for storing the end cap when the drive is operating. I think it fits snugly on both the main USB connector and on the holder, contrary to some other reviews. It also has a nice led light that flashes while it is accessing/storing digital information.
Would I buy it again, you bet I would!
Customer Review: Lost all my data after a little over a month of use
Summary: 1 Stars
I was very excited and happy when I got this drive from Amazon as it seemed promising... Lots of storage space that would allow me to carry around large files and perform backups of large folders containing important files and pictures. I never dropped or damaged the drive, it was used mostly at home and occasionally on my laptop at work or at a coffee shop.
After about a month, I was getting ready to turn my desktop off and decided to open a word document from the drive that I was working on earlier in the day. The computer (that has never given me problems before) hung on me for the first time as it tried to open the file from this jump drive. After restarting the computer, Windows discovered that this jump drive had multiple errors.
I was not able to access any of my files. They were gone. I am afraid to use the drive for backups now and wouldn't trust this brand anymore. Windows was able to fix the drive but the data was lost. Fortunately most of the data was still safe in my PC's hard drive.
Customer Review: Great Support from OCZ
Summary: 2 Stars
I have worked with usb drives for 6 years. I have owned 6 usb drives. This was by far the largest. I received my first ocz 32gb drive and copied 6gb of data to it the first night. I was impressed with the speed. The next day, the drive died. It was not recognized as a formatted drive by any of my 4 pcs. After contacting support from the OCZ forum, I received prompt attention but noticed this situation has happened frequently with this product. I received a tool to reformat the product, but lost the 6gb of data(unrecoverable even with recovery software). After reformatting, the drive was painfully slow. I lost another 600 mb of files the next day. I was told by support at the OCZ forum if the format was not successful, they would replace the drive. I saw this on the forum a lot also. I was able to get a quick RMA from Amazon.I sent the drive back and am waiting for my refund from amazon. I would have given it 1 star, but due to the excellent and quick support from OCZ I gave it 2 stars.