SanDisk Cruzer Titanium U3 Flash Drive Review

Most people these days carry a USBflash drive around with them. Forlaptop users they've become as much a commodity as say sugar or oil.Flash drives arequick and easy for transferring files, but beyond that utilitarian usage they're boring and don't give us much to talk about. SanDisk is trying to give a little more use and durability to these handy little devices in the form of their U3 Cruzer Smart Drive series.

Sandisk Cruzer Titanium Overview

SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 2.0GB in its package (view large image)

Under review here is the Sandisk Cruzer Titanium U3 2.0GB device. The Titanium Cruzer is nothing new, SanDisk has been marketing and selling it for some time. For those not familiar though, the Cruzer Titanium is pitched as being virtually indestructible in terms of build. You can drop it, throw it or accidentally run it over with say your car, and it should hold up and keep your data protected physically. You can buy some super cheap USB flash drives on the market these days, but they'll most certainly be made of plastic and liable to bend and break just being carried around in a bag. Not so with the Titanium Cruzer. The Titanium look is fantastic too -- a beautiful shiny metallic reflective surface that's tough to even scratch.

The Titanium Cruzer glows blue to indicate it is engaged with your laptop (view large image)

The Titanium Cruzer also has a nice retractable USB port, much more convenient than those horrible plastic nub covers you get with most other flash drive devices to protect the port. The flash drive also illuminates in a cool blue to visually indicate it has interfaced and connected to a PC.

U3 Platform

The U3 platform is what makes this SanDisk storage device more than just a regular old storage device. The U3 platform is something SanDisk is rolling out on the Titanium series of Cruzer flash drive devices and certain Cruzer Micro devices.

So what is U3? U3 is a joint venture backed by Sandisk and a company called M-Systems. U3 is responsible for the development of a proprietary application design specification created for the WindowsOS (sorryOS X and Linuxusers)that allows applicationsto be executed directly from a USB flash drive. These applications are allowed to write files or registry information to the host computer, but this information must be removed when the flash drive is ejected. USB flash drives adhering to the U3 specification are termed "U3 smart drives"."U3 smart drives" differ from traditional USB flash drives because they come preinstalled with the U3 Launchpad, which emulates the Windows OS start menu, and controls program installation.

So in a nutshell, the U3 platform is basically an OS for your flash drive. It will display in the system tray on the lower right side when you plug the flash drive into a PC, simplyright click the U3 system tray icon to see the various options and management capabilities you have over theU3 smart device.

Applications such as Skype and FireFox are the majorprogramscurrently available for the U3 platform. What this means is that you can install Skype and FireFox directly onto the flash drive, and once you plug the flash drive into a Windows machine you'll be able to use those applications whether they're installedon the host machine or not. The added benefit is that all personal browser settings in an application like FireFox are strictly kept to the flash drive and never written to the host machine, so it's a great way to be secure if you're using a computer other than your own.

Screenshot of FireFox being installed on the SanDisk Cruzer U3 device (view large image)

Installing a new application on the drive is easy, you simply click the "Add Programs" menu item (as seen in the above screen shot of U3) and it will then run you through a wizard that downloads the U3 package from U3.com and installs the application on the flash drive. Visit the U3.com software section to see what's currently available, some apps are free some cost money -- you can't just install any application on the flash drive it has to have been specially packaged and meet U3 standards.

As a bonus, SanDisk preinstalled Skype on the Cruzer Titanium for you. There's also a nice synch application that allows you to customize folders and files you'd like synched from your PC to the flash drive each time it is plugged in. Outlook email and information along with desktop settings can also be synched to the drive.

If you don't like the idea of U3 or just want to use the flash drive as a regular old storage device that can be opened in Windows Explorer, you can do that too and just disable U3.

Conclusion

Flash drives are a commodity and pretty cheap these days, but it pays to get one that's durable, will last and protect your data properly. For this reason it's wise to invest in a durable device such as the Titanium Cruzer. The price varies with memory capacity of course, choose the amount of memory that fits your needs and budget. The 2.0GB device I had to test is plenty enough for my need to transfer office and music multimedia files, the cost is $109.99. The 1.0GB Titanium device is $69.99. The U3 platform integration in this device will certainly be attractive to some buyers and prove very useful, but even without that you've got one of the nicer flash drives on the market.

Note: The U3 platform is also available on the Cruzer Micro series of flash drive devices, prices range from $34.66 for a 512MB Micro drive to $179.99 for a 4.0GB Micro drive (1.0GB Cruzer Micro pictured below)

(view large image)

 

Nice review!


I have the black cruzer micro 2.0 GB usb drive that is also retractable. I notice that while retracting it, the little white plastic piece sort of sinks in to teh device and makes a sound. Does that happen to yours also?

 

d0es this mean i can install a program on it and go to any cp and run that program without installing it on that computer...that would be cool
i have a supermini 64mb one from staples and a 512 from sandisk without U3 i think

 

You can't just install any program, it has to have been created for the U3 platform, you can see what's available by going here: http://software.u3.com/SoftwareCentral.aspx?skip=1

 

hey queshy. Well, the proper way to retract it is to push down and then pull back, so it does sink in a little and makes a clicking noise when pulled back.

 

I like the idea of U3. It is a pretty cool concept. Too bad you have to pay for some of the programs.
Tim

 

good review. i was considering one of these after i saw a video on youtube of a guy running over iy with a car and it was still fine.

 

I don't see much benefit in U3, to me it looks more like a way to raise the price of flash drives. I run Portable Firefox from a regular USB flash drive, a special U3 version of Firefox is not required. The retractable USB port of the reviewed drive is neat, though. Without a plastic cap there are fewer parts to lose.

 

I'm taking about extending also, I just get the feeling that the plastic is kinda cheap because it sinks into the device a bit when pressure is applied. I hope it's supposed to do that otherwise I will return mine lol.

If you look aroudn on the internet, there is a horribly negative reaction about U3 from the general public. People dont like how it makes it appear as a CD drive and how it starts automaticalyl, but there are settings you can change to get around these faults. I have no use for U3 so I unnistalled it. And that was the end of it, now I have a perfectly good flash drive. People are also complaining of horribly slow gtransfer speends w/ U3, but without it, its jsut as fast as any other drive ( I never even tried transfers w/ U3)

 

I'm not sure I understand how U3 is different from running portable apps like Portable Firefox.

The drawback of using portable Firefox on a flash drive is that the web pages load onto the flash drive instead of the computer's hard drive which makes browsing slow at times. Does U3 get around this somehow without leaving trace data on the PC?

 

This is incorrect. In Portable Firefox disk caching is disabled by default and no web pages are written to the flash drive.

 

abaxter,

Imho, there is one considerable drawback in this review:
you should have used HD Tune and ATTO-diskbench32 to show us how fast the stick is able to transfer data.

If I remember correctly U3 are rather slow.

 

U3 is a platform that combines standards for hardware, software, programming, and a 'launchpad' that acts as an interface to the programs you have installed on your UFD. However, there are a lot of applications that can run on a UFD without U3 support.

Check out The Portable Apps Collection 2.5. Basically a homegrown collection of tools and launchpad (PStart) you can use on any device. Very Killer!

Also see Portable Freeware Collection

BTW: I have two 2GB Titanium Cruzers, the previous generation non-U3. They are the best. No caps or clips to mess with or lose.

HD Tune: SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 11.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 12.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 12.1 MB/sec
Access Time : 0.7 ms
Burst Rate : 11.9 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 38.3%


*MoonDogg*

 

I like its thin form factor compared to other Flash Drive in market today. Corsair Voyager is another good performer flash disk, but I dislike its appearance which is covered with rather bulky rubber.

 

Does anyone know How I can get rid of the U3 software on my cruzer?

 

im considering the sandisk titanium with U3. ive heard U3 tries to autorun and install on every computer you plug into. is this true?
i have also heard it is a huge pain to remove. have you tried the new removal software? how easy was it for you?
can you just turn U3 off and then on if you want to use it?

thanks

 

I hava question about the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2.0GB. When I stick it into my Toshiba Satellite Laptop, two things on the lower right hand side popup. The first does not show anything, almost like a webpage failed to load some images. The second one does work( the one that indicates U3 is running on the Task Bar). But when I used my flash disk in another desktop computer, I saw that the first one was some loading image. Does this mean, that my laptop will not function entirely with my flash disk? I am using Windows XP on both computers.