Crucial Gizmo! 1Gb USB 12.0 Pen Drive 

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.

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