Verbatim TUFF-‘N’-TINY 4GB USB Drive

Hello All! Mobility Digest is about all things mobile, and that includes their accessories as well like portable storage. There’s one product that has become the dominant form of portable storage and that’s the USB flash drive, they’re getting bigger and bigger in capacity but yet smaller and smaller in size. They’re pretty much the perfect way to take all of your stuff with you in a tiny package that’s very portable.

So today for review I’ve got one of the smallest USB drives you can get, the Tuff-‘n’-Tiny 4gb USB drive from Verbatim. It’s not only tiny, a little over 1 inch in length but it’s also tough in that it’s resistant to dust, water and even static. Physical size and capacity don’t mean much though if it’s not a good performer so I’ve put it up against a few other 4gb flash drives I’ve got on hand for comparison, so read on to learn more about a great little USB drive…

TUFF-‘N’-TINY 4GB USB Drive – Green

Penny-thin and travel-tough, the Verbatim TUFF-‘N’-TINY USB Drive offers secure storage in one of the most compact, durable USB flash drives available.  Designed for everyday handling and resistant to dust, water and static discharges, this drive measures up to its name and is compatible with all USB ports.  It offers password security for Windows users and is enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost for Windows 7 and Vista users.  Perfect for carrying the files you use every day, the TUFF-‘N’-TINY drive comes with key ring lanyard to attach to mobile phones or key rings.  Choose from capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB. See for yourself how the Verbatim TUFF-‘N’-TINY sizes up!

Features & Benefits:
* Tiny, rugged USB drive measures 1.19 x 0.5 x 0.06 inch
* Resistant to dust, water and static discharges
* Compatible with ALL USB ports
* Password security for Windows users
* Enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost
* Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP or 2000, Mac OS 9.x or higher, Linux kernel 2.6x or higher
* Bonus key ring lanyard for mobile phones or key rings
* Available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities

Price $17 and up

The Tuff n Tiny comes in everyone’s favorite package, the sealed plastic clamshell (yes that’s sarcasm there…).

Included with the drive is a small lanyard that can be attached to your phone or keys to make it easy to take with you.

The Tuff n Tiny is basically all plastic making it very lightweight, obviously it’s green in color on one side with the Verbatim logo and the capacity listed. The other side is the USB connector itself.

Here’s a picture of the Tuff n Tiny with a quarter and my Jawbone2 for comparison to give you an idea of the size of it:

The Tuff n Tiny is nicely made, it feels solid and tough. I like this kind of USB drive because they’re so small, but I don’t like the fact that the design allows for it to be inserted into the USB port upside down. It’s flat so it fits into the USB port either way, so if you’re accessing the USB ports on the back of your computer that are hard to see, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of plugging it in the right way. Personally I use the USB ports on the back of my PC for things that will stay plugged in, and then I have ones on the front for things like USB drives, so it’s not a big deal for me, even though with this type of USB Drive I’ve got to look to make sure it’s plugged in the right way.

Included on the Tuff n Tiny is a PDF user manual, or quick start guide really, and a program called V-Safe100.

The V-Safe100 program is used to create a secure, invisible partition on the Tuff n Tiny. You can create a password and then decide how much of the drive you want to be public and how much you want to be private.

So let’s see how it performs.

For comparison I’ve got three other 4gig USB drives, the Corsair Flash Voyager Mini, the OCZ ATV Turbo and the Super Talent 200X USB drive.

For testing I used ATTO DiskBenchmark on all of the drives. It runs a series of tests and reports the transfer speeds for both read and write. It’s a very popular tool for testing flash drives and hard drives.

So here’s the results:

As you can see the Tuff n Tiny isn’t exactly the fastest when it comes to write speeds, but it isn’t the slowest either with the Corsair coming in the slowest with dismal write speeds.

The read speed though of the Tuff n Tiny is comparable to the others, it’s a pretty fast drive.

Most of us use USB drives to transfer stuff to and from places, and the other primary use is for reading from them, like filling them with audio and video files and sticking them in a notebook and playing the files. With these read speeds you’ll have no problem reading files from the Tuff-‘n’-Tiny USB drive.

The Tuff-‘n’ Tiny is a not a bad little drive if you’re looking for on that’s very portable and rugged.

The cheapest I found the Tuff n Tiny for was about $17, plus shipping, so that’s not too bad for a 4gig drive really.

Pros:

+Fast read speeds

+Very small and portable

+Rugged

Cons:

-Slow write speeds

-Can be easily inserted upside down