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Appeared on: Friday, July 6, 2007
OCZ Rally2 8GB


1. Introduction

OCZ Technology is a major manufacturer of memory related products. Apart from the classic memory modules, OCZ Technology also produces storage products based on flash memory, aka USB Sticks. One of these is the newly released 8GB USB Stick, a very sleek, small and high capacity stick. Bit how well does this USB stick perform, compared with other 8GB USB sticks on the market?

- OCZ Rally 2

The OCZ USB 2.0 Rally2 Flash Drive is the sleeker and more ergonomic version of the original Rally. The redesigned Rally2 features a more stylish housing, accompanied by a new signature OCZ ultra-bright orange status LED, using the renowned OCZ dual channel technology that made the first Rally the choice flash drive among enthusiasts. Thanks to the implementation of leading edge Dual Channel technology, the Rally2 puts data transfer in the fast lane and leaves the competitors in the dust.

Pick up the pace and transfer your music, pictures, videos, and data to your laptop or desktop in record time or simply “Plug and Play” them instantaneously from the convenience of any USB port. The Rally2 Drive excels when managing a wide range of media, and is optimized to more rapidly transfer today’s larger (5MB and up) files.

The ultra durable OCZ Rally2 stores vital documents, presentations, images, music and more in an ultra sleek pocket-size drive, so you can access your files without having to disconnect other USB ports to make room, a common problem with many oversized competitor drives.

The incredible OCZ Rally2 Flash drive is designed to be the fastest, most reliable USB flash memory drive on the market, and makes use of cutting edge technology and comes backed with a limited lifetime warranty for the ultimate peace of mind.

- Specifications


2. The Package

We received the retail package of the 8GB OCZ Rally 2. Users can buy the kit at the retail price of €93 (+shipping).

You cannot open the retail package without breaking the security shell, a good way to know you are buying a brand new product. In the back two accessories are included, Lanyard and a USB extension cable:

The dimensions of the Rally 2 are very small, 68mm x 13mm x 5mm. There are two logos printed on the one side of the device (OCZ and Rally2), as well as the capacity of 8GB:

On the other side is the OCZ technology logo and web address:

When the Rally 2 is in operation, it lights up an ultra-bright orange light on one end.


3. Tests

We fired up HD Tach v3.0.1.0 and prepared the full length test, which examines the whole 8GB of memory:

The test takes some time to complete, don't forget this is an 8GB USB flash memory stick. But finally, we got our reading and writing graphs:

First of all the performance is very good. The reading performance is stable at 24MB/sec, while writing stays at 10MB/sec. The Random access time is only 1ms.

But how does this performance compare with other tested 8GB USB sticks?

Looking at the test results, we see that Corsair's Voyager GT 8GB is the fastest 8GB USB stick we have tested with 24MB/s average read speed and a very impressive 22.5 MB/s write speed. The OCZ 8GB Megacart has good reading speed but rather low writing performance. All three devices have very similar reading speeds, but it is the writing speed which makes the difference. At 10MB/s, the OCZ Rally 2 is good, but this is far behind the speed of 22.5MB/s offered by the Corsair Voyager.


4. Conclusion

OCZ technology continues to introduce well balanced products on the market, with good price and performance. The recent releases of 8GB USB sticks is very good, fitting almost 2 DVD-Videos or a lot of Mp3 files. The Rally 2 enters the market promising features and performance. Don't forget that Rally 2 also supports the ReadyBoost technology, found on Windows VISTA.

The Rally 2 8GB USB stick showed very good reading speed (22MB/sec) but average writing performance at 11MB/sec. Compared with our other 8GB USB sticks, the OCZ 8GB Mega-Kart has slightly higher reading but lower writing performance, while the Corsair Voyager GT 8GB is faster in both reading and writing operations. Looking at cost, the OCZ Rally 2 can be found for around €93, the OCZ 8GB Mega-Kart around €100, while the Corsair Voyager GT 8GB around €113. The price follows performance, so if you are looking for an affordable 8GB USB stick, the OCZ Rally 2 is a good choice.



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