Using The Flash Voyager

Like all USB flash memory drives, the 512MB Corsair Flash Voyager is a piece of cake to use. In newer operating systems like Windows XP, it's pretty much plug and play. In Windows 95/98 though, you will need the included USB driver.

When we plugged the 512MB Corsair Flash Voyager into our testbed, Windows XP automatically detected its presence and initialized it. Once initialized, it was ready for use. A check of Device Manager showed :

Here's a quick check of its true capacity. Looks like it comes formatted using FAT16 by default. If you wish to reformat it in FAT32, you can do so but there is no real advantage.

Because most companies define 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes, the 512MB Corsair Flash Voyager actually has a little more capacity that advertised at 519,798,784 bytes.

The Activity LED

Like many USB flash memory drives, the Corsair Flash Voyager comes with a blue LED activity LED. It's quite hard to see it in the picture below though.

Activity LED in action

Whenever data is read from or written to it, the LED will blink. It's a useful feature because it warns you against removing the Flash Voyager when there is still activity.