Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2GB USB Drive

Features of the Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2GB USB Drive

Size

The small stature of the Micro Vault Tiny is the first thing that you will notice, and is its best feature. The Tiny is more than small enough to fit inside a packed men's wallet. The only catch to the small size, is the much increased risk of loosing it. Users prone to loosing stuff my find keeping up with the Micro Vault Tiny a challenge. The image above is actually considerably larger than the drive really is.

Carry Case

Since the Tiny is so...ummm...tiny, Sony also included a flexible plastic case with a lanyard to help you keep up with it. The case is designed to also protect the exposed USB connector on the end of the drive. I always worry about drives with exposed USB connectors.

Compatibility

The Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2GB flash drive is compatible with Windows 2000, ME and XP as well as Mac OS 9 and higher. Obviously, an empty USB port is needed and the drive will function with both USB 2.0 and USB 1.1.

Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2GB USB Drive in Use

Test System

For the testing of the Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2GB I used my test system with the following specs:

• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62
• Board: ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
• RAM: OCZ PC8000 2x 1GB

Hands on Testing

To test the Micro Vault Tiny I used a combination of synthetic and real world tests. I used SiSoftware Sandra 2007 and HD Tach for synthetic testing. For real world testing I copied a large folder to and from the drive and measured the times with a stop watch.

HD Tach

With HD Tach I looked at random access times, burst speeds and the average read speed of the Micro Vault Tiny. The results were as follows:

• Random Access Time: 1.7ms
• Burst: 11.0 MB/s
• Average Read Time: 10.8 MB/s

• Random Access Time: 1ms
• Burst Speed: NA
• Average Read Time: 12.6 MB/s

SiSoftware Sandra 2007

I used Sandra 2007's removable storage benchmark application for this test and recorded the numbers generated with 512b files.

• Read Speed: 15449 operations per minute (8239 Kbps)
• Write Speed: 167 operations per minute (89 Kbps)
• Delete Speed: 254 operations per minute

Real World Tests

For the real world tests I took a file folder containing a Windows XP Pro ISO of 584MB and copied it to and from the Micro Vault Tiny and finally deleted it while recording the times with a stop watch.

• Copy to Drive: 1:31
• Copy from Drive: 0:58
• Delete from Drive: 0:0:97

Final Thoughts on the Sony Micro Vault 2GB USB Drive

I was impressed with the performance of the Micro Vault Tiny to say the least. It held its own against the speed demon SanDisk Cruzer Titanium, and slapped the Mini-Kart around like that wrestler did John Stossel back in the day. If your looking for a really small flash drive you can store in your wallet or other small space, you really can't go wrong with the Micro Vault Tiny. If you are prone to loose things, you might want a bigger drive. From the looks of the Tiny, loss is an owners biggest worry.