The Rally2 Turbo comes in a standard retail claimshell package, which is pried apart easily enough. Sandwiched between the plastic layers is a card with the device description and other marketing fluff. At the bottom of the package is the actual hardware and accessories: the Rally2 Turbo drive itself, a standard grey fabric lanyard, and a short USB extension cable.
The drive’s casing is made of aluminum, so the drive actually feels cold at first touch. Imprinted on the top of the drive is the Rally2 Turbo logo, and the backside has OCZ’s logo. The top of the drive has an aluminum cap which hides and protects the USB connector, and the bottom of the drive has a notch of clear plastic which holds the orange status LED. It is hard to see, but this translucent notch also has a tiny hole where you can slip the tip of the included lanyard.
Unfortunately, the backside is not contoured to accomodate the cap, so the cap will be loose when the drive is in use. Verbatim’s “Store n Go” (reviewed here) also used a lanyard on its bottom, but still allowed the cap to be placed there.
When first plugged in, the status LED turns on, signaling that the device is getting power. The orange light is actually very bright, much brighter than OCZ’s ATV drive. As is standard with other USB drives, this light blinks whenever a read or write operation is performed, which is helpful to know when the device can be salfely removed.
I have found that many USB drive’s performance can be increased by changing the USB hub’s mode to “optimal performance”, which basically enables write caching to the drive. When this is enabled, data may be written in the background, so you need to see if the activity light is blinking before you actually remove the drive. Windows recommends that you actually unmount the drive (by right-clicking the “safely remove hardware” icon in your taskbar) before removing when Optimal Performance is enabled.
The device is actually rather thin, barely over the width and height of the USB connector. The drive’s length is about the same length as many other USB drives, and easily fits in your pocket.
