16/32GB Flash Drive small roundup - Conclusion
Author: Vedran Dakic
Date: 28 Apr 2008

First thing that surprised us quite a lot is the fact that 32GB drives are mostly just as fast or faster then 16GB ones. The second thing - apart from the random access score which was kind of expected, OCZ's Rally2 32GB is faster then all of the other drives - which in terms of benchmarks relates to four decent wins out of seven tests. This particularly comes as a flashback after playing around with this stick for a couple of days when you notice a huge difference in subjective copy/write/read tests done in the usual way - via Windows Explorer or Total Commander or (pick your favourite copy tool here). 32GB drives are quite a bit slower in terms of random access time, but this is not something that you'll feel a lot.

Thirdly, we've actually gotten used to the fact that usually Corsair's and OCZ's products are close in performance with OCZ crew doing a bit better job in the past year or so. This time, the difference is actually quite huge, especially in our subjective tests. But here's the real kicker of this article - in this general usage mode, Rally2 just runs circles around competition - both 16GB and 32GB - which, honestly - is a bit surprising. We'd really like to see what will OCZ do with their ATV Turbo series if those ever get to go to 32GB capacity.

So, let's look at the 32GB prices for a second since PEAK's stuff is kind of a competition to itself in this review. If we were to judge by PEAK's VGA prices, we'd expect these sticks to be super-price competitive so - we're still waiting for confirmation about that. But still, for a first-time product from some company - at least for us - PEAK's sticks are really good performers so make sure that you check them out if you're looking for 16GB stick. The price of Corsair Survivor 32GB is roughly around $250-270, while OCZ's Rally2 32GB price is around $145. Although it's a niche product, I'm not sure people would give $100 more for a Survivor, USB stick inside of an aluminum case which is slower then cheaper competition. If it was for the style, Survivor would surely get that award. Kuddos to OCZ, Rally2 gets our Editor's choice and we're eagerly awaiting on new flash products to see where will the speed bar go.