Customer Reviews

SanDisk SDCZ50-016G-B35 CZ50 16 GB Cruzer Blade USB 2.0 Flash Drive

Sandisk have engineered their removable USB drives to appear as 'fixed' drives since June 2012

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I cannot find a work around on the web.

If you are trying to create bootable media on a USB stick - for example a bootable Windows 8 install - applications and utilities will see these as fixed hard drives, not as removable, and you will not be presented with an opportunity to write to them.

You may use them as portable data drives by inserting and removing them as normal. Be aware of this limitation before purchase.

After about three weeks, it wouldn't connect properly to any of my 3 computers. If you pulled it out slightly, it would connect again but the connection would fail after a few minutes. Flimsy, garbage - do not buy

Had this since mid January, nice compact size and worked as expected foe a while. Recently suddenly decided to write protect itself during flie transfer. Having searched the internet for similar problems, I ensured that the protection box in properties was not checked. Internet advice seems to indicate drive is U/S. Cannot now add files or format the drive. Disappointing after 2 months of non-excessive usage.

This product proves the point that you get what you pay for: it has slowest data transfer rate of any USB memory stick I've bought in recent years.
That aside it has a good capacity and a nice lightweight package at a good price. It's just very s.l..o...w

The SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive is an attractive looking memory stick. I've had mine for about 6 months now and it's working fine. Originally bought for �16.99 although price has gradually been dropping. It's something around �12 now.

The drive is very attractive with it's red and black casing. Something pretty unique is how the whole thing is plastic and doesn't have usual metallic casing at the USB part where it slots into the USB port. It has a hole at the back to let you thread a keyring or string to attach to your keys or to something to hang around your neck. I wouldn't put it with your keys using a metal ring though, as too much pressure can break the plastic, as I know someone with one whom did this and lets just say the drive has seen better days, even though it still works.
16GB of space is enough for a lot of documents and even software (even if it's only really 14.9GB because of the way MegaBytes are measured and advertised (1024 per MB rather than 1000 per MB)). It can also fit a fair bit of media such as music and movies. Unfortunately, this is when you start realising the downside of buying such a cheap drive. The transfer speed of copying files to the device is very slow.

Write speed (copying files TO the drive) is around 19.5 Megabits/s (that's 2.44 MegaBytes). Read speed (copying FROM the drive) is around 262.5 Megabits/s (around 32.81 MegaBytes/s). The read speed is pretty good but writing is very slow and would be quite frustrating if you're copying a lot of files or a lot of large files to the drive. I own other flash drives and they fair a lot better in write speeds.
E.g. Kingston DataTraveller 16GB - Write speed 64.67 Megabits/s (8.02 MegaBytes). Read speed 171.66 Megabits (21.46 MegaBytes)

It has a 2 year manufacturer's warranty, which is okay but not great compared to Kingston and Transcend whom offer lifetime warranties for the flash drives but it's better than just getting the usual 1 year.

Advantages

- Looks cool
- Compact and simple design
- Read speed is on par with other flash drives
- Cheap for the amount of storage it offers

Disadvantages

- Slow write speed
- Plastic can break quite easily under pressure

To conclude, read speed is on par with other drives (faster than some, only a bit slower than others) but write speed is extra slow and a major let down. If the main purpose of getting this drive is to store software which you need to copy from the SanDisk Cruzer to PCs, then it's fine so long as you don't mind waiting a bit longer for files to copy onto the drive or you don't need to keep updating them with new versions. For backing up the odd documents, then it'll do the job. If however, you frequently need to back up large amounts of data to the drive, then I would spend a bit more on a faster drive.

Its a great buy, dont get me wrong its worth the money for a 16gb small thing like that!
However, my intentions were to improve on the size in gb of a flash drive with the added effect that it would also become fast. Ive run tests and normal transfer rates and the max i could pull off transferring with this flash drive is max around 5 mb a sec! My old memory usb transfered at 29mb a sec, so it was a tad disappointing at my loss. However if you have the spare time to wait that extra time for transferring files, then buy it. You wont regret it however just be aware that the transfer speed is real slow and you could be waiting around 4-7 mins transferring a 1gb file.

I bought few of these and every single one has stopped working within a few months. When they did work they were really slow to transfer data and delete. I would not recommend them at all, at any price. It's changed my opinion of Sandisk to be frank.

I bought this 16GB at the end of 2010 and was amazed at how small it was when able to hold so much. However I now have had major problems as while Windows recognises that a usb has been inserted it says that no files are stored. Someone told that this is common with SanDisk and that they now avoid them. Will not buy this brand again.
Back to my old trusty PNY 1gb which despite being over 4 years old still performs!

Very poor quality. Corrupted after first use now unreadble, unwritable and un formatable on PC, Mac, Android camera/video, music mixing desk

I bought this because it had really good reviews and the design seemed quite good. I recently bought another memory stick, more expensive than this which broke in less than a year because the metal 'connecting' part pushed inside itself and so couldn't be inserted into the computer (very inconvenient, given all my uni work is on there!).
I wanted a memory stick I could rely on, this 'SanDisk Cruzer Blade' wasn't it.
It's not very well set up, I don't think.
It's quite good that it has a password, but it opens up in a totally different window, not just your normal 'Documents', which isn't that much of a problem, it's just a bit awkward for transferring files and it logs you out after a couple of minutes and you have to log back in again.
One of the main problems is that when you open a file from this memory stick, like you would any other, the document will open but when you just click 'save' it doesn't actually save, because of this weird set-up it uses.
I typed out 2 more pages on an assignment I had been working on and just clicked 'save' as normal (a few times, I save my work frequently). When I went to open it later, it hadn't saved the 2 new pages I had just written. You have to 'save as' to another folder/location, which you can then continue to 'save' and then transfer this new file back onto your memory stick and 'replace' the old file. It's a really stupid system and I have no idea why they have used it, I've never had a memory stick like it. Not ideal.
That isn't the only problem. When I try and back-up the memory stick on my computer it crashes and stops responding. Every time. Given how unreliable this memory stick is, you would definitely want to have the option of backing it up. You don't have that option. It doesn't work.
Worse than the other memory stick. At least that one worked for a year.
Useless. Don't bother buying if you don't have time for awkward technology.