4. Corsair 8 GB Flash Voyager GT Series USB 2.0 Flash Memory Drive

Corsair is known for its memory products, which now include a wide range of USB Flash drives. The Flash Voyager GT Series is packaged in a tough and cute rubberized skin, designed to take the proverbial licking and keep on doing its thing. The visual cue that tells you you've got a GT version of the Voyager is the set of red side panels - the ordinary Voyager flash drives are blue in that area instead.

The red side panels are what tells you it's a GT model; capacity is etched into the LED cover and USB connector.

As is usually the case with most Corsair Flash drives, this model includes a 24" USB extension cable and a black Corsair lanyard. The extension cable came in handy when plugging the unit into the port block on the back of a PC, because the rubberized coating on the outside of the Voyager made it too big to plug directly into the USB port itself. The only other potential gotcha with this unit is that the slide off rubber cap is loose, and could easily be mislaid or lost when you plug the drive in to use it. If you buy one of these bouncy little flash drives, be sure to keep tabs on where you put the cap.

When it comes to performance, the GT series is pretty snappy. Vista happily recognizes it as ReadyBoost capable, as it should be with rated continuous read and write speeds of 34 and 21 MB/s, respectively. This drive makes a great way to carry large amounts of data, music, and images around, and also includes TrueCrypt file encryption software that may be used to set up a secure partition on the drive. Installing this software requires its user to have administrative privileges on a Windows 2000, XP, or Vista machine. The drive ships with a ZIP file that contains the installer and documentation files, and updates are readily available from the TrueCrypt Web site.

At prices in the $80-90 range, the 8 GB Corsair Flash Voyager GT delivers storage at an affordable $10-11 per gigabyte. It's fast, compact, and cute, and will make a welcome addition to any back-to-schooler's PC gear.