With loads of data around us, USB pen drives have now become a ubiquitous part of our lives. The advancement in technology along with the expansion of storage space in this dinky form factor has also led to rise of usage of USB flash drives. Today, we review an 8GB USB flash drive from the Taiwanese manufacturer called Silicon Power.
Silicon Power manufactures storage products and memory modules. The 8GB flash drive we received hailed from the Ultima II I-series range and unsurprisingly, the drive looks pretty simple with brushed metal finish to it. The drive has a lanyard loop but Silicon Power didn’t bundle any cable along with it.
Weighing just 10 grams, the drive supports all version of Windows, Mac OS and Linux. This series range consists of drives from 2GB to 32GB.
Software
Although the drive doesn’t come with any software pre-installed, Silicon Power enables consumers to download software for the flash drive. The software available for download are called SP Widget and SmartKit.
SP Widget features seven main functions including backing up documents, folder backup, data encryption, My favourites backup, Email backup, PC Lock and a 60-day trial version of Norton Internet Security 2010.
SmartKit on the other hand, gives an option to make a bootable USB drive, secure content, Lock PC, encrypt zip files and rescue tool.
Performance
Despite a decent software bundle, the drive’s performance is the one that counts the most. We tried copying a 2GB+ file and a mixture of various files going up to 2GB. In sequential mode, the flash drive recorded a read speed of 25.35MB/s with write speed of 10.30MB/s. The mixed files resulted with a read speed of 19.4MB/s and write speed of 8.65MB/s.
The Ultima II I-Series USB drive goes for under Rs. 800 and with a good speed performance coupled with bundled software, the drive from Silicon Power turns out to be a decent buy.
Rating: 
Pro: Fast read speeds, Sturdy Design
Cons: —
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