USB Flash Drives

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 19, 2006, 5:53 pm

I need to get one and am not that familiar with them.

I'm thinking about getting a Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820233042

16GB seems like a nice size to fit a decent amount of stuffage on a little thumb drive.

I assume they vary in speed. Anything else I should be aware of? I think most have security password encrypted partition options. I saw a review of these and they can be washed in the laundry, dropped in boiling coffee, frozen, run over, and still work.

This one mentions it's bootable so you can load windows on it. Are some not?

What's the scoop on flash drives? I've also read a little about Ceedo and U3 which allows you to run apps off of USB Flash Drives.

http://www.ceedo.com/

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » December 19, 2006, 10:53 pm

Out of curiosity (if you don't mind sharing) why do you need a Flash Drive?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 20, 2006, 2:02 am

Do you see all the freaking USB ports in PCs these days? Gotta stick something in those!

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » December 20, 2006, 2:08 am

Winnow wrote:Do you see all the freaking USB ports in PCs these days? Gotta stick something in those!

I think the same thing when I see some of my wife's friends!

Truant · Post by **Truant** » December 20, 2006, 3:25 am

archeiron wrote:Out of curiosity (if you don't mind sharing) why do you need a Flash Drive?

If I were to venture a guess, it's so that he can do things at work that his work doesn't allow him to do.

noel · Post by **noel** » December 20, 2006, 3:45 am

I won't speak for Winnow, but in my line of work, having a flash drive is nearly essential. I keep many versions of switch software, multicast test software, network utilities, specs, manuals, and marketing brochures all on the flash drive. My current drive is a 4GB cruzer micro and I use it constantly. I got it on sale for $80. Can't wait for the 16GB's to get under $100!

Neost · Post by **Neost** » December 20, 2006, 10:49 am

and of course with Vista and a flash drive fast enough you can use the READYBOOST feature to cache shit and improve vista's performance.

NOTE: I couldn't type it with a straight face.

I've got 3 different flash drives that I've acquired at various functions, plus one that I bought myself. Not one has yet passed vista's requirements to work as cache memory.

noel · Post by **noel** » December 20, 2006, 11:06 am

Forgive my naivety, but wouldn't the speed (or lack thereof) of the USB make it silly to use even the fastest flash drive as cache memory? I've been wondering about this since I saw it for the first time in Vista... I'll have to do more research.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 20, 2006, 1:02 pm

Truant wrote:
archeiron wrote:Out of curiosity (if you don't mind sharing) why do you need a Flash Drive?
If I were to venture a guess, it's so that he can do things at work that his work doesn't allow him to do.

I use remote desktop connection for that (which is why I'll need Windows Vista Ultimate (or a business edition) eventually at home when I upgrade). All of my surfing, newsgroup activity, DC++, comic reading, pdf reading (magazines), etc is all done on my home PC from work, bypassing all the websense crap at work. Music and Podcasts I listen to at work on speakers with mp3 player connected, that aren't attached to my work PC.

None of my PCs have had a floppy drive in them this decade and half of the 90's except when I absolutely had to attach one for a bios update.

USB flash drives are large enough and useful enough to get one for all sorts of possible things...driver updates, DVD image transporting/installing, sizable data (movies, music, comics, etc)

The 16GB size Flash drive caught my eye (8GB nice too) as it's large enough for full DVD images+. I'll be an early adopter of any kind of mass storage that doesn't have moving parts as well to replace Hard Drives.

My current job doesn't require a security clearance like the last one so data security isn't as intense. I could transport work on a flash drive if needed.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » December 20, 2006, 2:04 pm

I have a 1 gig that I use for school. I move my assignments back and forth from home pc's to school pc's with it. It's extremely handy for that.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » December 22, 2006, 12:08 am

I KEEP ALL MY PORN ON A 4GB STICK

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 22, 2006, 1:43 am

cadalano wrote:I KEEP ALL MY PORN ON A 4GB STICK

You have less than 4gb of pr0n? Loser.

Ebumar · Post by **Ebumar** » December 23, 2006, 4:55 pm

I use a 1gb for work at every appt. It really saves me time. I wrote a simple batch script to auto install all of my utilities (anti-virus/spyware/backups/drivers) and place them in an easily accessible folder. Honestly, if I didn't have it I would be lost...

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » December 28, 2006, 1:09 am

I bought a 4gig on sale for 70$. I love it. The same was on sale during the Christmas shopping season for 55$. It's now back up to it's regular price of almost 200$.

If I'm at a friend's house and he has 30 albums that I want, I just toss them on my flash drive and DL them to my PC later. It's purely for convenience. I also use it to grab the latest family photos from my parent's PC. I don't really require 4gigs to transport anything. It was just too good of a deal to pass up, heh. Besides, more is always better than less!

My wife has a plethora of 512k sticks that she uses for different projects at work. She picked every one of those up as free giveaways at different conferences she goes to for work.