Testing the resilience of a Lexar 16GB USB Firefly Jumpdrive

After careful consideration, the Lexar 16GB JumpDrive Firefly was selected as the official IT memory stick. It’s red colour makes it easy to differentiate between it and the white corporate USB flash drives, and it’s small size made it easy to grab a fistful in a hurry. This is built upon by its capacity (16GB), and flashing red end when in use.

Naturally no self-respecting IT manager would put a product into production without a thorough soak test, so I ran a sample Lexar 16GB JumpDrive Firefly first through a wash with a hefty spin cycle, and then the tumble drier. This simulated the following conditions:

1. wet

2. forced water entrance

3. excessive gravitic force from the spin cycle

4. heat

5. shock from impact inside the drum of the tumble drier

6. water evaporation from the components

The result was satisfactory (to give it Blofeld’s highest accolade): the memory stick immediately mounted when inserted into a computer, and has past full disk integrity tests.