Jumpdrive Firefly 4GB

I bought the Lexar Jumpdrive Firefly 4GB as a backup device, hoping to regularly sync my My Documents folder with it. Initially I was pleased with it--it is very small in size and the 4GB capacity is plenty for my purposes. However, when I started using it I was surprised how long it took to copy over my files, a total of only 360MB. Later I noticed that it was also very slow when I did an incremental backup, which usually consisted of only a few small files that I had modified the same day.

The performance was so slow, that I decided to test the drive using the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark program. The results astonished me. The drive was at least 10 times slower than another flash drive that I owned, a SanDisk cruzer mini 1.0 GB. In fact, the Jumpdrive Firefly was the slowest drive in the benchmark program's database--its performance was only slightly better than a 3.5" floppy disk!

Needless to say this didn't work for me. Unfortunately it was too...Read more

The Lexar firefly USB flash/thumb drive is a small and compact drive that does the job. If you need a tiny flash drive for work or for casual use... it should do fine. However, overall it leaves you with a feeling that the designers could have done better and could've spent a bit more time ....well, designing it. Here are some pros and cons that I've found with these fireflys. The one I have is the 4GB, however they come in an assortment of memory capacities including 256MB(red), 512MB(green), 1GB(blue), 2GB(black), and 4GB(white). Each memory comes in a unique color. For example, the 4GB seems to only come in white, and 2GB comes in black.

Pros: Very small compact design (about as small as the Sandisk Micros), and clear protective case seems to clip and hold onto the drive pretty well. Cool blue LED at the end that flashes while reading and writing. Reads and Writes data pretty fast (though seemingly not as fast as Sandisk drives)

Cons: Pre-loaded Software...Read more

Will this device hold data? Yes. Is it small? Yes. Is it slower than floppy disks? YES. This is the slowest thumb drive I have ever used. 15 minutes to copy 100mb of files. It's not worth the hassle being so slow. I suggest you search elsewhere.