The thumb catch has to lock in place before you try installing the flash drive, or the USB jack will just fall back into its case. This can be somewhat tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll never have another problem.

USB Flash Drives

We've tested a couple different USB flash drives at PCstats, and realistically speaking there isn't too much of a difference when it comes to file transfer speeds and such. The main spec you'll want to watch out for is if the device is 'USB2.0' compliant, not just if it will work with a USB2.0 port.

Devices which communicate at USB2.0 speeds do so at 480Mbits/second. This is sometimes also called Hi-Speed USB. On the other hand, USB1.1 (or just USB) devices communicate at a paltry 12Mbits/second by comparison.

Not all PCs have USB2.0 ports, but you can quickly check your system by going to the 'Device Manager' under 'My Computer', and expanding the 'Universal Serial Bus' section. If you see an enty along the lines of 'Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller' present, then your system has USB2.0 ports. Different motherboard chipsets support different numbers of USB2.0 ports, so consult your motherboard manual to find out which USB ports on the board are 'Hi-Speed.'

Data Transfer Tests

Upstream (write) speeds for the Gigabyte GO-U0128B hover around 7MB/s at best, and about 3382b/s for buffered write operations. Downstream (read) speeds are much more consistent at 8MB/s across the board. The Sandra 2002 Pro tests we conducted on the Gigabyte GO-U0128B give some more details as to write and read speeds for various operations, and you can see there is moderate variation.

Sandra 2002 Pro Benchmark Results
Crucial Gizmo 2.0	Crucial Gizmo	Gigabyte GO-U0128B
Interface: USB2.0	Interface: USB1.1	Interface: USB2.0
Size: 512MB	Size: 256MB	Size: 128MB
Buffered Read : 5 MB/s Sequential Read : 5 MB/s Random Read : 3559 kB/s Buffered Write : 1657 kB/s Sequential Write : 5 MB/s Random Write : 1117 kB/s Average Access Time : 5 ms Drive index 3440	Buffered Read : 898 kB/s Sequential Read : 898 kB/s Random Read : 898 kB/s Buffered Write : 765 kB/s Sequential Write : 892 kB/s Random Write : 759 kB/s Drive Index 718	Buffered Read : 8 MB/s Sequential Read : 8 MB/s Random Read : 8 MB/s Buffered Write : 3382 kB/s Sequential Write : 7 MB/s Random Write : 2264 kB/s Drive Index 6193

Ultimately though, the Gigabyte GO-U0128B 128MB flash drive is mighty quick. It is the fastest of the bunch tested here, but it also has the smallest storage capacity. It's interesting to note that both the Gigabyte GO-U0128B and Crucial Gizmo2.0 are USB2.0 devices.

Like memory, choosing a USB flash hard drive all comes down to price. At the moment the Gigabyte GO-U0128B is not available in North America, so we're not certain what it will end up retailing for. However, given its small size, clever retractable USB jack, capless design, fast data transfers, and yes even the bright blue LED, it is a pretty nice bit of kit.

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