Verbatim Store n Go Micro 4GB Flash Drive Review

We tested this USB drive against many other USB flash drives we had laying around the lab. We tested the drive using the ATTO benchmark and HDTach R/W. The following hardware was used:

• Dell Precision M4400 portable workstation
• nVidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB Graphics Card
• 4GB DDR2-800 memory
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26Ghz (check out notebooks with this processor)
• CoolerMaster Sentinel Advance 5600dpi Gaming Mouse
• Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM laptop hard drive (check out laptop hard drives)
• Windows 7 Ultimate

The Verbatim Store n Go Micro held its own against many of the other flash drives, offering an average 12MB/s write speed and 32MB/s read speed. The write speed is about what you should expect for a mid-range USB flash drive, and is easily much faster than “giveaway” promotional flash drives which only offer about 5MB/s write speed. Like other flash drives, the device performs better on smaller large files than many smaller files, so it is recommended to ZIP or RAR a bunch of smaller files before transferring. HDTach mirrored our findings, putting the Verbatim micro drive right in the middle performance-wise. It has slightly above-normal write speeds and very good read speeds, but if you want the next level of performance then you need to purchase an enthusiast-level USB drive.

Overall this is a good flash drive, and is easily one of the smallest I’ve had on my keychain. The device is much sturdier than other drives I’ve tested, even being almost completely naked. It has yet to be seen if this drive will bear the scars of other drives after prolonged isolation in my pocket, but the finish looks much more durable than cheaper housings.

I’m decently impressed with the Store n Go micro USB drive as far as mid-range drives go. Normally I only reserve space on my keychain for extremely high capacity or high-performance drives such as the Corsair Flash Voyage 64GB (reviewed here) or OCZ Rally2 Turbo (reviewed here), but this drive is so tiny that it can stow away in your pocket without any notice. With the Verbatim Store’n’Go Micro flash drive on your keychain you’ll never be without portable storage.

	REPORT CARD : Verbatim Store’n’Go Micro 4GB USB Drive category rating comments Quality 5 The housing feels very sturdy and has a great finish Innovation 4 Smallest footprint of a portable USB drive I’ve seen Performance 4 Slightly higher write speeds than average, but still a business-class drive Installation 3 It would have been nice if Secure and Public areas were both available at once. If you have 2 partitions then it’s a pain to switch between them. Value 5 For around $20 you can have storage with you that you don’t have to think about FINAL VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars