The test is by no means exhaustive, as there are many hundreds—if not thousands—of USB drives on the market today. The test did include popular sticks from recognizable brands, as well as some budget and novelty pieces that you might be likely to pick up. The results were somewhat predictable: sticks from reputable companies like OCZ, Lexar and Sandisk offer greater read/write speeds, and sticks in the 4GB range perform consistently well.

There were some surprises, namely the standout performance from OCZ units and the plodding, about-as-fast-as-it-would-be-if-it-stored-data-on-actual-wood Brando Wood drive. And results aside, I've derived some comfort from the fact that out there somewhere, there exists a man named Kristofer Brozio who is willing to actually run a dozen time-consuming benchmarks on over 20 USB keys. Check out the full results at the source link. [Test Freaks via Engadget]

New Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi Memory Card Gives Consumers Exciting Wireless Option for Uploading and Sharing Digital Photos
2GB SD-Compatible Memory Card Enables Users to Wirelessly Send Photos to Their Computers, Social Networking and Photo-Sharing Websites

FREMONT, Calif., Sep 18, 2008 — Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, is giving digital photo enthusiasts the opportunity to "cut the cord" with the introduction of its Shoot-n-Sync(TM) Wi-Fi(R) memory card — a convenient wireless solution for uploading digital photos to computers as well as sharing them via social networking and photo-sharing websites. The 2GB memory card, compatible with SD-compatible digital cameras, reliably records and stores digital photos in a camera just like a standard memory card, but adds the time-saving convenience and simplicity of wireless uploading from camera to computer — and directly to the Internet.

Easy, No-Hassle Photo Uploading
With its advanced Wi-Fi connectivity, the Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory card is a great product for a wide range of photographers from bloggers, web surfers, and social-networkers to busy parents, traveling executives, and students. The Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory card provides a simple and convenient solution for managing all their digital photos. Instead of removing the memory card from a camera, transferring it to a reader, connecting the reader, and then dragging each individual photo onto the computer, the Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory card offers users a much simpler solution.

How It Works
As an Eye-Fi Connected product, theLexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory cardfeatures Eye-Fi technology and connects to Eye-Fi's web service to wirelessly and automatically upload photos from a digital camera to the web and to a computer. Eye-Fi is dedicated to building products and services that help consumers navigate, nurture and share their digital memories. After the brief initial installation of Eye-Fi Manager software on your PC, the card is ready to wirelessly download copies of any photos stored on it, automatically to your computer, as soon as it comes within range of your home computer's wireless network. Without removing the card from the camera, users can back up photos to a computer or transfer them to photo-sharing, social networking, or blog sites. After the digital photo copies are sent, all a user has to do is approve the transfers and they can be instantly shared with the world. Learn more about the Lexar

Shoot-n-Sync memory card at www.lexar.com/digfilm/sd_wifi.html.
Manisha Sharma, Lexar director of product marketing, noted: "Lexar is committed to delivering innovative products that enhance people's enjoyment of digital photography. The Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory card not only provides our customers the reliability and quality of Lexar memory, but the opportunity to enjoy a new level of wireless convenience — free from the hassles of cables and greatly simplifies transferring photos from camera to PC."
Compatible with both Windows(R) and Mac(R) operating systems, the 2GB Lexar Shoot-n-Sync Wi-Fi memory card will ship in October.

About Lexar Media
Lexar Media is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of NAND flash and DRAM memory products under the Lexar and Crucial brand names. Lexar offers products in all major flash and DRAM memory categories, including consumer and enterprise-level USB flash drives, industry-leading memory cards for photography, and all popular form factors of memory cards for mobile devices. For computers, Lexar also offers a full range of DRAM computer memory upgrades for PCs and Mac systems, and solid state drives (SSD). An industry leader in innovative, patented flash memory technology, Lexar is vertically integrated with Micron Technology, one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.

For more information about Lexar, visit www.lexar.com. For more information about Crucial products, visit www.crucial.com, www.crucial.com/uk or www.crucial.com/eu. Lexar Media, Inc. is a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc. Lexar Media is a division of Micron Europe Limited, a division of Micron Semiconductor Asia Pte. Ltd., and a division of Micron Japan, Ltd.

About Micron Technology, Inc.
Micron Technology, Inc., is one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions. Through its worldwide operations, Micron manufactures and markets DRAM, NAND flash memory, CMOS image sensors, other semiconductor components, and memory modules for use in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking, and mobile products. Micron's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the MU symbol. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit www.micron.com.

(C)2008. Lexar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Information is subject to change without notice. Lexar, the Lexar logo, and Image Rescue are trademarks of Lexar Media, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Lexar Media, Inc. is a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc.

The drive comes with the Lexar dashboard software for both Mac and Vista (although the OS X version required a driver install and a reboot) that was easy to use and easy to create mounted encrypted partitions on the drive. After setting aside 500MB of our 1GB drive on the partition—which was then mounted as a separate disk—we could drag and drop files onto it and it would be completely unreadable (it just looked like a file) when the drive was on another machine unless you knew the password.

What's also convenient is the ability to encrypt and decrypt files that are not on the drive, meaning you can use the drive to encrypt half the files on your hard drive if you wanted. Except if you lost the drive, well, you'd probably have to go buy another one. All in all, their claims of this being the cheapest drive with the e-ink and 256-bit AES encryption makes this drive worthwhile in sizes from 512MBs up to 4GBs. An 8GB version should be available soon. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Lexar]

Unfortunately, I found write performance to be a lot lower than I'd have liked.

It read a fair 15MB per second on several machines, confirmed using both synthetic and MP3 file copies. But only wrote at 3MB per second.

For comparison, the laptop drive in the DV9000 HP Pavilion churned about 30MB per second in both reads and writes, and the Lexar Lightning, the fastest USB drive I had on hand, scored 17MB and 14MB per seconds in reads/writes.

In a nutshell, write speeds really need to be much better before I can recommend it.

–Brian Lam

Home Page [Lexar]

Unfortunately, the cameras that support these UDMA cards won't be announced until "later this year". – Jason Chen

Lexar unleashes high speed CF card for yet-unannounced DSLRs [Pocket Lint]

Birthdays, Valentine's Day, Bahmitzvas, anniversaries—I don't see a situation where giving the gift of a flash drive wouldn't be appropriate. At least it is shiny. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Lexar]

The affected JumpDrive Firefly flash memory drives were sold between April and May this year, for between $30 and $110. The recalled JumpDrive Secure devices were sold only at Fry's Electronics in May, for $80, the company said.

If you've got one, might as well go ahead and return it just in case. You don't want to come home to a fried $2000 laptop due to a faulty $80 thumb drive. – Jason Chen

Lexar JumpDrive® Computer Storage Devices Recalled for Burn Hazard, Certain Models Involved [U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission via PC World]

Lexar's newest addition to its USB flash drives at CES is the JumpDrive Mercury. If you've ever had a problem with knowing how much storage space you have left on your drive, this Mercury takes care of that with an integrated capacity meter. In fact, this meter gives you the info you want without ever having to be plugged into your PC. The display, created by E Ink Corp, is paper-thin and unbreakable (for klutzes like me). The drive will come in 1GB and 2GB capacities. Also look for the JumpDrive Firefly, which is smaller and comes in 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB capacities.

Guess what? Google loves you SO much. So much that they demand you use their software for searching wherever you go. So now they've partnered with Lexar to ensure that happens. Some new Lexar USB Drives will be available with Google software that will automatically ask users if they want to install it when inserting the USB drive into a PC. Once they're done and remove the drive, the software automatically uninstalls and everything is back to normal. Included software will feature Picasa, Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search, which are all pretty useful, to be honest. I just think it's a bit creepy since you can just download them all anyway. Look for Lexar-Google products later this month or in early February.

Press Release [via Lockergnome]

Now that we can finally store more than some crappy pictures on our cellphones and PDAs, it makes sense that we get more digital media made specially for these products. Lexar's new line of SD and MMC form factors are being shown off at CES and though not the sexiest of stuff, it can certainly be of some help with your computer files, games, music, video and images. SD cards include built-in security applications for storing and playing secure content and come in capacities from 256MB to 2GB, MiniSD cards are half the size of conventional SD cards and include an adaptor for use in all SD products (in capacities from 256MB to 1GB), and MicroSD cards are perfect for the mobile phone and also include an adaptor so they can be used in all SD products (in capacities from 256MB to 512MB). Then you've got MMCmobile MMCplus universal cards at that also include an adaptor for use in all SD or MultiMediaCard products (in capacities from 256MB to 512MB) and finally the MMCmicro, which offer the same high-performance as the MMCplus universal cards at a quarter of the size (in capacities from 256 MB to 512 MB).

If you're a professional photographer or just use your camera as if you were, the new Lexar Media Professional CompactFlash Reader takes all your needs into consideration. The reader itself is pretty rugged looking and includes a LED to let you know when transfers are done. The same LED also acts as a card ejector and Lexar says using the product is a one-hand deal. Cause god forbid you had to use both hands. Horrors! Read and write speed perfomance is a quick 10MB per second. Other new readers include a 32-bit card reader, multi-card reader and portable card-reader.

Lexar Releases Card Readers for Pros [Mobilemag]

Today's DAP Headlines:

Ever wanted your iPod to boast a simple, elegant, and fruity look? Your wishes can come true with Griffin's new Chameleon line of cases. We've reported on the 60 GB brick known as the Incoder HD E1, which shows that slapping a wheel controller on the front doesn't automatically make it look cool. It's also day of the deal in DAPland, where you can score a 2.5 GB Rio Ce2100 (AKA Carbon Jr.) or a 512 MB Lexar LDP-600 for the same price as an iPod Shuffle.

iPod accessory guru Griffin Technologies is at it again, this time with a product they call the Chameleon case. It's a series of sticker-like cases made of polyvinyl, available in 16 different designs. If you want a kiwi-clad iPod Mini, these guys are the only guys in town.

The HD E1 from Taiwan-based Incoder is a mammoth DAP that feels like a 2002 device in today's world. Sure it's got a CF slot, IR receiver, and line-in recorder built in, but at 28mm (1.12 in.) thick, you won't be taking it very far in your pocket anytime soon. Plus, it's 2005, an 8 hour battery life doesn't cut it guys!

Rio may be dead, but they still have stock left in electronics stores, and it's likely to be on the way out fast and cheap. The Ce2100 model (basically the Carbon with a smaller 2.5 GB drive) can be found for just $ 99 online. For the same price as a 512 MB iPod Shuffle, you get blessed with outstanding features like an LCD screen and drop-and-drop databasing capability. Looks too good to pass up.

Lexar may not be finished like Rio is, but there's still a great deal out there on their LDP-600 flash player. For just $ 79, you get 512 MB built-in memory, an SD card slot, FM radio/recording, voice recording, and even an FM transmitter. The kitchen sink will be sold seperately as an accessory, but with everything this Lexar DAP has included, it looks like an outstanding bargain.

That's all for now, have a great Labor Day weekend!

The Lexar LDP-200: The No Frills Music Player [LIVEdigitally]