2 - Introducing the Tally .. um Rally !
As stated in our introduction we'll look at two flash memories today,and both look 100% identical. The 4 GB version was made for pure raw speed in both reading and writing. The second one was made for pure sheer volume - 32 GB on a stick. How amazing is that? Now available in a 32GB capacity the flash-disk became a massively worthy investment. It's a small HDD in your pocket. Great stuff to store movies, MP3, work related files, classified stuff (encrypted) or even you could use it as a backup drive. But first, let me show you a couple of photo's of the two products:
The sturdy (blister) packaging. Now it's the year 2008, so chances are pretty good that you know and understand the concept of a USB flash memory drive. If not ... then it's likely that you should not be on this website, sorry. So I'm really not doing the technical briefing on flash-memory here, okay? I mean it's a memory stick for crying out loud. I however am very interested on how well these sticks will read/write. We'll test this with a RAW data file-copy (we'll copy a 3.5 GB compressed file towards the stick and measure write speed). And we'll use some synthetic software to measure as well.
Both the flash drives come with a lanyard to carry the stick around. The 32GB stick also comes with a USB extension cable.
Opposed to several opponents, OCZ does not offer any kind of security software to be used in conjunction with the Rally sticks. This would have been a great feature especially for the bigger sized flash-sticks.
Once unpacked this is what the Rally sticks look like. It might look like a bit of cheapish' plastic, but it's made out of a sturdy material, yes .. metal. If you drop this thing, it's not likely going to break. In fact I did our usual quick drop test and threw it down the stairs, still perfect. Not a scratch on it.
Once you plug the stick in, a small orange activity LED at the end of the drive becomes active, and when the device is being accessed, it flashes. Right, it's time to tally it up.
