NOT SO LONG ago, 8 GB desktop hard drives were commonly available. It says something for the pace of technological advancement that we are comparing four 8 GB USB Flash drives this month. Prices have come down to a point where picking up a couple of these to transport large amounts of data is quite viable. The large size also means that you can actually carry around your applications with you, and some of the drives come with software to facilitate this. This means that you can, for example, transport your version of Firefox, customized just the way you like it, with all your bookmarks, and use it on any computer you sit down at. Not all applications are compatible, but there's a reasonable cross-section available.

We tested four of the top drives available in the market today. The four devices tested are quite different in their focus; some are geared to protect your data under extreme conditions, while others focus on speed or keeping costs down. There's something for everyone; you can find a device to suit your budget, or go with a more expensive one to protect sensitive data.

The Players:-
The four devices we tested are the SanDisk Cruzer Contour, Kingston Data Traveler Secure Privacy Edition, Transcend JetFlash, and the Buffalo E-Series. They all look quite different, and Kingston in particular stood out. Designed for security and privacy, it feels like a small tank. The case is made from steel coated with titanium, and it certainly feels solid. It's supposed to be waterproof up to four feet, shockproof, and dust resistant. SanDisk also uses steel, and this gives the drive some heft, but it's not as solid as the Kingston. It has a snazzy connector retracting mechanism, and a handy little cover over the connector. It's more about form than function with this drive.

Transcend sticks with its standard design of a plastic body and a push and slide retracting connector. Buf¬falo was the most mundane of the lot. The clear plastic body and simple cap aren't particularly sturdy, but it helps keep costs down. Buffalo has a special driver that increases performance. Strangely, it's not included in the box, and you have to download it from their website.

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Performance Tests:-
We tested the drives using both real-world and synthetic tests. In the synthetic tests, Buffalo took a clear lead with the help of the Turbo driver. Posting high scores of 36.7 MB/s transfer times in the read tests, it was quite stunningly fast. Sadly, this performance did not show up on the realworld tests.