Corsair Flash Voyager GTR 32GB

This is quite an act of deception – Well the write up is like this: The CORSAIR Flash Voyager®, family of USB drives are rugged, stylish, compact, and reliable, making them ideal for transporting MP3s, digital images, presentations and more. Flash Voyager drives are fully Plug and Play with most operating systems and are backward compatible with USB 1.1. And The Flash Voyager… Read more

and Flash Voyager GTR are enclosed in the Corsair proprietary all-rubber housing.

Boasting water-resistant properties, these drives allow users to carry more valuable data and applications without compromise. Several reviews of the Flash Voyager products have demonstrated the ruggedness, durability, and reliability of the Flash Voyager family. The Flash Voyager has been shown laundered, baked, frozen, boiled, dropped, and even run over by a SUV in many third party reviews. After all the punishment it receives, the drive continues to work.

Well I had hardly ever used it - and only for backing up a few vital bits and then losing for a few years here or there... I really mean I had only used it like 5 x in 5 years...

And I pulled it out to do some transfers.. and Lo and Behold - the file system had corrupted, I repaired that, and amongst the "hoo haa" and dramas, I had tried to copy 500 small files onto it and half an hour later only 12 files were on it... and after much ado... I figured that the "Highly Prized and Much Covetted Flash Drive" has simply died....

Well so be it.

So rather than just toss it out and risk "The meaning of life" falling into the wrong hands, I decided to manually wring it's neck - and what I found was:

I was expecting a thick rubber sheathing to be around a very strong steel inner jacket, which contained the circuit board and USB plug.

But what I found was a rubber jacket, around nothing more than a long circuit board, and with very little effort I was able to break up the internals into about 6 or 7 chunks of circuit board and components.

I thought, "This is just crap- and contrary to the "Ever So Tough" - can be run over and keeps on going - this is exactly the worst sort of drive to keep in your back pocket - or to be stood on - because it will easily break.

The rubber sheathing and cap only give it a little bounce and water resistance - but other wise their whole marketing campaign is a total lie.

It's no harder to snap into pieces, inside the rubber sheath, than say 5 or 6 common house hold matches.... it's that easy.

When they LIE to you, and their great sales pitch is done just a substandard design, trumped up to be something it's not - then don't trust that company nor anything it says about any of it's products.

If they are prepared to lie to make sales - get rid of them.

Don't hire Corsair and don't use their products.