HardwareHell

On the menu today, we have a nice new product from OCZ; their Rally2 Turbo 4gb USB Drive. OCZ is widely and well known for their quality memory products, so I would think that we could safely assume that they would apply the same level of quality to their other products. We shall see.

What exactly makes a usb drive different, or better than any other? Some people may say “its just a usb drive, what difference does it make what crap it comes with, and how it looks, so long as it works”.
That is a valid point, but there are plenty of usb drives that work well, so finding one that meets that criteria is not difficult, so from there, you can then broaden your search to extra stuff. I think there are several things that you need to consider.
One of the first things people look at is, well, their looks! I think that if you have something that you are going to carry around with you all day long, then it should be fairly attractive. Now, obviously, this is an area where people will vastly disagree, and that is fine, but there are some things out there that are simply ugly.
Another thing I think that comes into consideration is how sturdy it is made. If you pick it up, and parts seem to be rattling around, or you can bend or move some stuff with a great deal of ease, there is a good chance that one drop or two may jar something loose, and you risk losing your data.
Extraneous accessories are something else that can set a device apart from another. Sure, they will work without a lanyard, sure they will work without a usb extension cable, sure you don’t need a “busy” LED to tell you when its reading or writing, but those sort of things are nice to have.
Speed is a pretty common commodity we see on these devices anymore.. If they have usb2.0, and have readyboost, then you are pretty good to go.
Software that is included with the usb sticks sometimes can play a part in your decision… Some have device specific (proprietary), some have free open-source stuff, and some have nothing.

So, let’s check this bad boy out and see what all it beholds.

Introduction
At first glance, it was pretty to look at. It was black, had the nice OCZ and Rally2 Turbo on it, and was a nice flat black. I noticed it came with a lanyard, and a usb extension cable. Lanyards are really nice to have if you are a student or use these a lot at work, so you can hang it around your neck, or have it sticking out of your pocket for easy access. The usb extensions are nice for people who may not have a front/top/side usb port and dont want to crawl behind their desk every time you want to use it.

note: i realize these pictures are sideways.. i had to leave them that way because of the new way we are watermarking images… they may be changed later once we iron everything out

After opening it, the device seemed to be in sturdy shape. No jittery, shaking parts, and it didnt feel as though I could break it into a million pieces by just dropping it on the floor. So, I hooked up the lanyard (for whatever reason, the hole was not completely punched in the plastic, so a little help was needed). I noticed that the cap has a nice snug fit, which is a very good sign. There is nothing worse than losing the caps on these things. Speaking of caps, I have yet to decide whether I like the cap to be hooked to the lanyard, or the bottom. If you have the cap hooked to it, you can then just wear it around your neck, and pull it off when you need it, and not have to take it off your neck, but you risk someone stealing it, or it falling off. So, I don’t get why companies don’t make some sort of snap on cap that comes off with a simple button or something. Oh well.

Testing and Usage
Plugging it into my computer gave me the welcoming “da-DING”, and then I was greeted by the empty folder opening. This did not come with any software installed on it. Sometimes thats good, sometimes bad. Personally, I dont like some of the programs for thumbdrives. They feel too “eager” to help you out every time you plug it in, you have 15 windows flying all over. However, I do admit that I did end up installing the Portable Apps suite (and I’m using portable office to write this review).
There is an orange light on the top for power/busy status, and it is BRIGHT. If you are a nocturnal being like myself, you may dislike how well it can light up your room at night.

The performance was extremely good, I felt. I copied a few large files both individually, and then several at a time, and I timed some things just to get a reference.
I moved a 1.7gb file from my PC to USB in 1m06s, and moved that same file to my PC from the USB in 40s. I then took 4 files totaling 3.77gb and moved them to USB in 2m33s, and back to my PC in 2m:20s. Which shows that it does not seem to have any problem reading/writing large files, or involving several files read/write at the same time. Good news.
Just from general use, I literally have nothing negative to say about it. Maybe after a while, beating it to death, putting it in the freezer, leaving it out in the sun, washing it a few times, it may start to have degraded performance, but I am not going to do that, because (for the most part) people are careful enough to not put their usb sticks through that torture.

Conclusion
Pros:
Sleek design, nice looks
Good amount of accessories (lanyard, extension cable, status LED)
Good performance
Cons:
Really the only con I could think of is lack of software, but some may see that as a pro, so the choice is really yours.

I give the OCZ Rally2 Turbo 9.5 out of 10 stars.

I would like to thank OCZ (ocztechnology.com) for providing the review sample, as well as the staff at hwhell.com for providing the opportunity for this review.