A few months ago (more like six now, I think) I lost the cap to my Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager. I read up here you could get a free replacement cap. I sent away for it, and at no cost at all to me they sent me a new one. (They didn't replace the whole drive when I lost that, but I didn't have the nerve to ask, either.)
Well, that Corsair 4GB Flash Readout that I've been using for so long started acting stupid a month or so ago. Right around the time we moved, right around the time my mobo got fried, right around the time I accidentally formatted a 300GB drive full of video thinking it was the 30GB drive (to be fair, that's exactly what the Windows 7 installer said it was... well, 27.8GB). Copy files to it, and they wouldn't be available on the next machine. Portable Firefox "lost" its Data folder, which somehow became a 4KB "file" called "Data".
Anyway, I RMA'd it, and sent it in... they wrote me via email and asked if it was OK to swap it for an 8GB flash drive. They didn't say Flash Voyager, they just said 8GB drive, and wouldn't elaborate. I told them sure, and asked if they could pass along a message to upper management: stop discontinuing cool products like the Flash Readout and the RAM with the activity indicators; stuff like that was what made me choose them over other "premium memory" companies like OCZ and Patriot. They just wrote me and said they'd pass that along (probably won't, but somebody had to have read it) and would ship my drive shortly. I think I sent it out the week before last?
Not bad... the 4GB Flash Readout had amazing speeds (mid-to-high 20s read and write) and lasted about 18 months. I don't care if the 8GB drive isn't a fast one (though it's Corsair, how bad can it be?), I'm switching to hard drives. I'm lugging around an old-school 300GB external (the kind with a power brick and 6' data cable) but I got some OT at work; my wife's letting me order a portable external I can carry in my pocket. They've gone up over the last year, but it seems like I can get a 320GB Western Digital for about $70 from Newegg. My wife was thinking more like $50, but for a respectable brand, they're just not that cheap. We'll have use for the flash drive, but that big hard drive has me spoiled for PortableApps, I could never go back to using them on flash drives again. Not to mention they're so easy to lose.
Update 2010-May-7: They just sent me an email saying the drive has been shipped. At 1:30AM my time; 10:30PM yesterday theirs. 
Anyway, a Google search of the model number (CMFUSB2.0-8GB) reveals that it is, in fact, a Flash Voyager. Feels so weird, I had a 16GB Flash Voyager, and I lost it... racked my brain for weeks trying to figure out where the bloody thing could have gotten. Now I'm getting another one in the mail. I dunno. Might just use it after all, looks like I'm not getting that portable hard drive as soon as I thought. Hmm... lug a big hard drive around, or a stealthy flash drive? Tough call. But 8GB is all I *really* need.
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TLDR! Kidding.
I'm a little confused by your post tbh, unless perhaps I should reread it. Corsair are awesome and that's why you're not going to use their products anymore in favor of a portable hard drive?
Otherwise, very informative, thanks!
This is exactly how I interpreted it.
My decision to go with an external hard drive has nothing to do with Corsair. They continue to be awesome, but a flash drive just isn't right for the task. If one of the best can fail after just 18 months, and portable hard drives are many leagues cheaper per-gigabyte, flash drives become a bad idea. Add to that the fact that a cheap portable hard drive can nearly double the speed of a top-of-the-line flash drive and max out the USB 2.0 data rate.
No, I'll continue to use Corsair products, just not flash drives (and not flash drives from any vendor) except the one they're sending me. I know hard drives fail too, but not after just 18 months. That big 300GB for example I've had over 5 years.
And TLDR -- first time I've heard that on a site other than GameFAQs, aka the _____ of the Internet, fill in as you like, but you can't use anything too dirty, because that's reserved for 4chan... Anyway, I'd like to think that PortableApps.com is a little above those two... and by "a little" I mean many, many miles.
cant find it but i know its not dead
How do you know it's not dead if you can't find it? Does a tree in the forest make any sound if no one is there to hear it?
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
if it moves or not
It's dead AND alive
But does it have consciousness?
...You can't look and see...
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman
it still works.
It came via UPS Thursday afternoon. Sure enough, 8GB Flash Voyager. Sure enough, my screwball computer recognizes it, and then "drops" it a minute later. But I recently replaced my motherboard (and CPU) and I can't reinstall as my DVD burner also went out. My luck is not so well these days, but I can replace the burner for about $22, and then, reformat (I'm thinking Windows is using the old chipset drivers, which work, but only barely). Then my USB ports should work fine. I can "talk" to my external hard drive, but only because it uses something the old motherboard didn't have: FireWire. The new mobo has it so I can communicate with the external hard drive.
[insert stressed emoticon here]