OCZ ATV Ultra fast and rugged USB flash drives

If you are after a USB 2.0 Flash Drive that is ultra fast and rugged, then you should probably consider the OCZ ATV and ATV Turbo drives from OCZ Technology Group.

The ATV Turbo (the yellow drive) is claimed by OZC to have the fastest USB Flash Drive speeds on the market with read rates of up to 35MB per second and write rates of 30MB per second. That certainly sounds fast to me - I can remember the days when it would seem to take forever just to copy a 5MB mp3 to a Flash drive. If the 30MB per second really is possible, you should be able to copy six 5MB mp3s to the drive in one second!

Featuring a heavy duty shock and water proof design, the ATV and ATV Turbo Flash drives have been designed to handle harsh conditions. The colourful housing is made from a durable rubber and is claimed to keep the Flash data safe in a range of conditions, even when the drive is completely submerged in water. I'm not sure I would like to test that claim.

The ATV and ATV Turbo USB 2.0 Flash drives are compatible with Windows Vista and are optimised for ReadyBoost technology. ReadyBoost is a Windows Vista technology that allows you to use non-volatile flash memory, such as a USB flash drive, to improve system performance without having to install additional memory. The USB Flash device acts as a cache memory where the operating system can store and retrieve frequently accessed data much faster than from the hard drive.

The OCZ ATV USB Flash Drive is available in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities.
The OCZ ATV Turbo USB Flash drive is available in 2GB and 4GB capacities.

Links for each Flash drive on the OCZ Technology website are provided below:
OCZ ATV USB 2.0 Flash Drive
OCZ ATV Turbo USB 2.0 Flash Drive