Some 9 years ago, I was introduced to the USB Flash drive; who at the time, coming in a rather excitable review from publication Maximum PC, was billed as a replacement for the floppy drive. Granted, the sticks of this time were slow, expensive, and tiny - with a paltry 32mb module weighing you down into the hundreds. Coming with this was a downright inconvenience - these drives worked natively - albeit only for operating systems past Windows 98SE; a little fact that made the drive horribly impractical for doing service on any systems that had even minor problems. But it showed promise; and that's probably what's important.

Now, consider just how far these drives have evolved since then. Consider that an 8GB stick - more than enough to cart around everything a businessman, student, hell even a gamer and geek could need - retails for somewhere around $20. Just $20 in most parts of the world for an indispensable product, that holds all the data you could need, indefinitely to boot. Considering the factors of cost and capacity are cut out, convenience is right up there since 90% of systems ship with drivers natively, and speeds are usually enough for anyone, the question is begged - what's the point in reviewing a little stick like this one?

Simple; the bases of build quality, ease of use, and value still need to be well covered. Considering the diminutive size of this product (as you will soon come to see), the thought of reliability immediately floats to mind; but that's something for the review to say, and not the introduction. Let's take a look at the features and specifications, shall we?

Features & Specifications:

A fairly standard set, if I do say so myself, but to be fair, to most buyers it'll be fluff. In the span of two years, when the warrantee is up, the cost to ship the unit back to OCZ would be higher than to buy a much larger drive - I'd speculate 32gb to be dirt cheap in two years. As to the speeds themselves, that's what the performance section will have to say. Beyond these two points, let's slit open the packaging and liberate this little unit - I'm sure it's just itching to take a size comparison to a penny.

A Closer Look:

Alright, well considering this review consists of around a whopping 7 images, this section is going to be rather short and sweet. Let's start off with the packaging itself; Coming wrapped up on a small sheet of cardboard, the Spyder is a slick product without much to say. Now, even though USB flash drives have become ubiquitous enough to be handed out like candy in some places, some may not yet know how to utilize them, or how to open this particular one - a simple question addressed on the rear of the package. Just a flick of your finger, and it's open - and after a little bit of a fight with some concealed USB connectors, the drive is installed, and ready to go. It's a little bit of a shame that all hardware doesn't behave this simply.

Taking the drive from the packaging, the puny dimensions quickly become apparent, especially when slung alongside a readily available Virtual Hideout (Canadian) Penny. Considering that the width of the coin is greater than that of the drive, but almost equal to it in length, you can easily get an idea of the tiny size of this thing - which is both a good and bad thing. It's great for chucking it in a pocket and going, but it will be an absolute nightmare if it ever disappears into or onto your desk. Coming packed with the device is a small lanyard; the application of which has me baffled to this day - I suppose it's just something to remind you that you now have a tiny OCZ product hanging around. With that being said, it's time to move onto the installation and performance.

Installation & Testing:

After many hours spent frantically on the night before this review was due, we tried all sorts of things to get this drive to install; waving it by the screen, tapping it on the desk, even a voodoo ritual. Then one of the writers on the site had a bright idea, to just plug it in.

...Yeah. It's a USB flash drive - there's basically no installation required; so in reality, this is one of very few products promised years ago, a device of true plug and play. Though it can occasionally be tricky to get the contacts to seat fully due to the protective cover, there's nothing really impeding the installation of this drive. That said, it's time to benchmark!

Like most other devices in the vein of external storage, there's just a few things that we want to know about the drive - namely, how fast is it? For this application, HDTach fit the bill nicely, as it provides an average line, as well as other information such as CPU use and access times.

What's nice about these tests is that they're quick, they're clean, and they're well cut. Especially nice is the fact that OCZ advertised the drive to fly at speeds of 21-35MB/s, and though that upper limit was never found, the lower limit was rarely breached. Considering the super quick access times of .7ms, the high CPU use (on a dual-core processor) seemed almost forgivable; but alas. During testing, the drive felt responsive, provided no problems, and stayed a bit warm, but never scalding to the touch. That being said, it's time for the conclusion

Conclusion:

Well, that's about all she wrote - this little USB key works well, performs as was promised, is relatively cheap, and on the whole, is fairly easy to use. Though in the past USB keys were definitely a topic to research, the low cost of the product today means that unless you absolutely need high speeds, or certain features, almost any stick out there on the market would do. However the design of the unit is where the OCZ outshines some others. This is a very interesting product with a very interesting design, and if it's something that you find appealing when you're out there hunting for the next key, then by all means, give it a shot.... provided you can find it, considering it's strange absence from most major e-tailers at the moment.