If you’re like me, you treat your flash drives like they don’t break or contain circuitry that could get damaged. My flash drives are all attached to my keychain and since two of them have covers that could not be attached to the drives when it’s in use, I have decided to just keep the caps off permanently.  What I need are flash drives that could withstand this kind of treatment and more.

Fortunately, Corsair has the very sturdy Voyager line of rugged flash drives. The company recently released the smallest addition to the line. The Flash Voyager Mini houses a 4GB drive that still possesses the standard Voyager all-rubber casing that protects it from shock, temperature and moisture.  The new drive weighs just 5.4 grams and is just a third the size of a USB drive.

Corsair was able to achieve this small size through a new capless connector plug, which is just marketing speak for a retractable USB jack.  At$29.99 it is a bit on the pricey side (you can get 8gb sticks for the same price) but the ability to withstand abuse is worth the price.