Corsair ships tough Survivor drives

Corsair this afternoon released what it claims is the world's toughest USB flash drive. The Flash Survivor range is built out of heavy-duty aluminum with a rubber collar that makes the drive near-shockproof. Special sealing also guards the flash stick against potentially fatal drops into the water; in-house testing shows the drive surviving depths of up to 650 feet without leaks.

Its integrity is also strong when attached to a computer, Corsair boasts. 256-bit AES encryption is built-in to password-protect information should the drive be lost or stolen.

Two versions of the drive are available today. The basic Flash Survivor stores 4GB of information at normal speeds and ships for $60. More demanding storage is handled by the Flash Survivor GT, the company says. Beyond doubling space to 8GB, the GT also rates at speeds up to five times faster than most memory sticks with quick read and write speeds of 34MB/sec and 28MB/sec. This lets a full length movie transfer from the drive in as little as 82 seconds. It ships at the same time as the normal Survivor for an elevated price of $130.