Duracell Rugged USB Drive (16GB)

Duracell has long been a household name in the battery industry, but you may not know that the company famous for "Copper-Top" batteries also has come out with a line of USB flash drives made in partnership with Dane-Elec, a manufacturer specializing in portable storage. The Duracell Rugged USB drive (16GB, $20 street) has a size and shape similar to a battery itself, but this 16GB drive?also available in 32GB capacity ($28 street)?is one Duracell you'll never have to worry about needing to replace.

Design and Features
As mentioned above, the Duracell Rugged USB is roughly the same shape as a Duracell AA Battery, if perhaps a bit larger at 0.75 by 0.75 by 2.35 inches (HWD). The cylindrical design includes a twist top that extends a retractable USB plug. The battery-like design looks and feels cool, but it makes the round body of the drive too big around to fit in some USB slots?including the ports on my laptop. Also, the round body is covered with a grippy waffle print design, but it it's still so round that it may roll away if set down on a slanted surface.

The drive has a USB plug which extends out from the drive and retracts into the drive to close, meaning that there is no cap to lose. The drive body is made of rugged black plastic, with a grid pattern providing an easy to grip surface. The black rubberized body is accented by a stripe of copper in keeping with the Duracell Copper-top look, and the twist-top has a ratcheting feel to it. Unlike the Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (32GB) ($80 street, 4 stars) or the Corsair Flash Voyager GT (32GB) ($64.99 direct, 4 stars), however, the lack of a cap means that there is nothing protecting against moisture, a real mark against any rugged drive.

The drive is labelled as 16GB, but like all drives, the reality is a bit less. In testing, the Duracell offered 14.9GB, slightly higher than the similarly labelled Verbatim V3. With no software to clutter the drive, and FAT32 formatting for broad compatibility, the Duracell Rugged USB is ready to go out of the box, with compatibility for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

With a street price of $20, the 16GB Duracell Rugged USB can be had for as little as $1.25 per GB. Coincidentally, the Verbatim Store 'N' Go V3 (16GB) ($20 Street, 3.5 stars) offers the same capacity and USB 3.0 for the same price, making the two drives among the most affordable on a price per GB basis. By comparison, competing rugged flash drives are usually more expensive?the chunky Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (32GB) sells for $2.35 per GB, while the rubber-armored 32GB Corsair Flash Voyager GT sells for $2.03 per GB. The Duracell clearly wins on price.

Performance
In actual testing, the Duracell offered fairly slow performance, scoring 4.1 MBps write speeds and 12.5 MBps read speeds in our timed data transfer tests. By comparison, the monstrously large 128GB Kingston DataTraveler R500 was faster (21.9 MBps write, 30.5 MBps read), as was the Editors' Choice Kingston DataTravler Locker+ (8GB) ($18 street, 4 stars) (9.7 MBps write, 24.0 MBps read). Using USB 2.0, the similarly sized Verbatim Store 'n' Go V3 managed to top it as well (10.2 MBps write, 33.6 MBps read).

Duracell is hoping to extend its household brand recognition into memory products, and it sounds like a smart move for Duracell, but the Duracell Rugged USB Drive may not be the product to lead with. The rugged features are lacking, the overall performance is slow, and hampered by a bulky design. However, the Duracell Rugged USB Drive is one of the more affordable flash drives we've reviewed, and buyers will overlook a lot for a low price tag.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Duracell Rugged USB Drive (16GB) with several other flash drives side by side.

More flash drive reviews:
??? Duracell Rugged USB Drive (16GB)
??? Verbatim Store 'n' Go V3 USB Drive (16GB)
??? SanDisk Ultra 32GB Flash Drive
??? Verbatim Store 'n' Go Pro USB Flash Drive (64GB)
??? Kingston DataTraveler R400 (4GB)
?? more

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