Price watch: 8GB flash drive, $9.99 shipped

This is the lowest price yet on an 8GB flash drive.

(Credit: Newegg)

On Monday, I posted an 8GB flash drive for $16.99. Sorry to do this, but Newegg has an even better deal (with one catch): it's an 8GB Corsair Flash Voyager drive for $9.99 shipped.

What's the catch? You have to pay $24.99 up front, then wait on a $15 mail-in rebate (PDF).

If you don't mind that, this is far and away the best deal I've seen on an 8GB drive. And it has a 10-year warranty, twice that of Monday's Kingston drive.

In the looks department, I'll give the nod to the Corsair's rugged, black-and-blue shell. Alas, I don't see any way to keep the cap from disappearing, which is a constant problem for me and my flash drives.

Still, for 10 bucks, big whoop. It wasn't too long ago that a 4GB drive at this price point was reason for excitement. Who's taking bets on when we'll see a 16GB drive for under a sawbuck?

[FroZone]

That "ruggedized" shell is one of the ugliest I've ever seen. It looks like a VR Trooper.

[this1!]

lol...

can we take a minute here so that we may truly appreciate a VR Trooper reference?

o, thank you...

[mjn507]

I have the 4 GB version of this drive and it really isn't that ugly. It's nice and rubbery and takes some beating quite well.

And it comes out of the washing machine AND dryer with no problems (oops)!

[mil2civ]

Thanks Rick. Just picked one up. Buyers beware that $15 rebate is in the form of a Visa Rebate Debit Card.

[aka_tripleB]

I don't see a problem with that. I think that's better than getting a check in the mail and having to find the time to go to the bank and cash it.

[BigGuns149]

So? It is accepted anywhere where Visa is accepted. Just use it the next time you go somewhere. Most places accept credit these days. It would be one thing if we were talking a Amex debit card(there are still some holdouts for Amex), but Visa/MC is taken pretty much anywhere these days.

[A_Wave]

A lot of restaurants, deli's and other mom & pop places won't take the debit cards. Older hardware can't access the balances on the cards.

[mrwbucket]

I bought the 4 GB version of this because of the long warranty. It has been very durable, but it also seems to be extremely slow. Running portable apps on it can be painful.

[mjn507]

I, too, have the 4gb. I have no issues running portable apps on it ... works just as well as my 1gb memorex with portableapps. Then again, I have nothing else on the drive - no factory software, no files, nothing other than what I get from portableapps.com

[big8news]

what you pay for is what you get

[jc364]

Rebates are stupid and bad for consumers. Please, save your money and don't support rebates in marketing.

[mooney101]

rebates are joke. I'll never buy a product on rebate again to cave money. They never come in and are complete ripoffs.

[FroZone]

all the rebates I've ever applied for have come in.

[rickbroida]

FWIW, I've never, ever failed to get a rebate. (Probably just jinxed myself.)

[bionicjim]

Same here, Rick. However, several times I had to make a call to the rebate center (spending time tracking down their number, etc.) in order to ask why my rebate hadn't come through after 16 weeks or whatever was promised and they said they had been waiting for "verification" (meaning whether I was organized and motivated to call them) and would now send it. As I get older and more senile I don't know if I'll make the effort to track this stuff anymore. In fact, I've not received my rebate for the Jawbone headset last month and can't even remember who it was with. Time for research :)

[inspectre69]

Matching Big Lots On Price! 8gb Key for $10.

[Georgia in MS]

I think this is the best price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227333 at newegg for flash drives.

I have no problem at all with rebates. In fact, I just got two back from Corsair/Newegg for this 8G and a 16G. They send you a debit card with the amount of rebate. You register the card and then use it. No problems at all. I think you just have to really read all the requirements and send everything the first time.

[j0sepac0]

Agreed: that does look like a better deal from a price/GB perspective and it's even rated better by customers (which isn't saying much -- both the 16GB OCZ and 8GB Corsair aren't rated very well and seem prone to failure -- you'll want to make sure you don't use these without having any important data on a more reliable source of media). Warranty seems suspect on the 16GB though, Newegg states lifetime, but one of the customer reviews stated the box said 2-year.

[ikramerica--2008]

Corsair is a decent brand for memory chips, but in general, I've found that inexpensive flashdrives = useless, dead drives in short order. Or they don't take reformatting well, or are only recognized 1/2 the time, things like that.

When you are talking about storage, which I would assume means you want the stuff on it to not be lost, cheeping out can be costly in the long run.

[TechnoMan475392]

I got 16 GB for 25 dollars.

[wiredchicken]

Why do memory cards cost so much compared to these?

[j0sepac0]

There are many differences between ROM (such as this flashdrive) and RAM ("memory"). These are different types of hardware designed for different purposes. I'm not an expert on hardware, but to keep things simple, RAM is much much much (did I say "much") faster -- probably on the order of millions of times faster if you look at access time (depending of the ROM media and the RAM chips) -- that alone would explain the difference in price.

[deusXmchna]

Flashdrives and Memory Cards (if you're talking about SD/SDHC/xD/microSD/etc) are all NAND based flash memory (technically a ROM because your info isn't lost when power is no longer applied). If you're referring to the types of memory cards I mentioned (like for you cameras, cell phones, etc), there's not as huge a price difference in the 2-8meg range as you'd might think- if you're shopping in the right place like Newegg. Look for free shipping deals and rebates. I agree with most of the posters here on the overall crappyness of rebates, and have been burned more than once on some pretty big rebates- BUT I've never had a problem with a rebate offered through Newegg.
(If you were talking about a price difference between flashdrives and motherboard memory chips (DIMM/SO-DIMM/SDRAM/etc)- apples and oranges, like the last poster said- but DDR2 prices are falling quickly due to new DDR3 motherboards. You can max out a 32bit OS box (4mb) with quality memory for under $30 if you keep your eyes open.

[deusXmchna]

Make those MB=GB's in my post. pre-coffee "off by a few decimals" error

[BlitzBoy1120]

It may be a good deal, but the casing is ugly.

[BlitzBoy1120]

It may be a good deal, but the casing is ugly.

[deusXmchna]

There does seem to be some recent quality control issues with the Voyager series. Originally they were spec'ing out at the top of the pack along with Rally2s, PatriotXT, and a few others- but lately there seem to be reports of recent Voyagers not coming close to the speeds of earlier Voyagers. Maybe they built the product name/customer trust base up, and then went to cheaper memory? Or maybe a quality control problem? Either way, 8GB/$10 aint bad. Run memtests to check em out right away.

[deusXmchna]

One more thing. I've been burned bad by a few rebates, and usually steer WAY clear of 'em- but I've never been burned through Newegg. I've noticed that customer reps from various companies troll the comment sections on Newegg, and are usually pretty quick to make right MIR complaints. Just my experience.