whats up with usb "pen drives"

[setfree]

Does anybody have experience with these. I was thinking about getting one around 128mb for christmas cause it think it could be very handy, especially if I have to save something to take to school and print.(since we have macs at school) I was wondering what everybody thought about these. BTW I was at circuit city today and I saw a mini usb drive that was upgradeable. It had a little slot for a flash card. I thought that would be pretty cool also.

[DrZaius]

Hi setfree,

I've used several 16MB models and they're very handy. I had no problem getting them automatically detected as new drives in Win2K and WinXP and copying files to them is pretty fast. You can even boot directly from some models, so I like to keep drivers and utilities on it. Hope that helps.

[Tuf]

They seem like a pretty neat idea. You'll have to make sure the files are compatible with your MACs, unless of course you are using a MAC at home as well.

[glc]

The Sandisk Cruzer is slick - that's the one that you can swap SD cards in and out.

[Mac Medic]

i have the creative nomad muvo, in addition to being a USB thumb drive it doubles as an mp3 player. Not too bad really, although i really only use it for files, not music. I have an iPod for that.

http://www.nomadworld.com/products/muvo/

[redbaron_snoopy]

I use a 64MB pen drive. Very handy when I don't wish to lug my laptop home from work or when the laptop doesn't synch well with customer's projector for a presentation. I always carry a floppy and a mini-CD with the drivers on it in case the destined PC is non XP or non Win 2000. This is the only slight inconvenience.

However, if you can accept a slightly bigger size, than a pocket hard disk will store much more at lower cost per MB.

[HAL9000]

I have a 32Mb version that I use constantly for those situations where a file is too big for a floppy, too much of a waste of time for a CD.

[Iman74]

I was going to buy one of those but was talked out of it. Nothing wrong with it but someone had a better suggestion which I bought and use on a daily basis. I bought a <a href="http://www.microtechint.com/qs-zio.html">Smartmedia 128mb and Zio Card Reader</a> which in total just cost me just over $80 dollars.

The beauty about this over the thumb drive is you can always switch between flash smartmedia cards or just use the same one over and over again. Also, it's fast and there are so many more types of readers other than usb which makes accessing it always possible. For I work in an NT environment where USB isn't functional; so I purchased a Floppy Disk Smartmedia reader; it's slow but does the job.

[setfree]

I found the one I want. Mwave has one in their holiday specials list for $80. It's 128mb but it also doubles as an mp3 player. Pretty neat heres the link http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/doc2/a19610.html. Im gonna order one tommorow along with a lite-on 48x24x48 burner for christmas since mine will only burn about 1 in 5 cd's now.

[mattg2k4]

That looks like a nice deal, I may get myself one.

[Iman74]

Nice but personally I thought this one might be better. What do you guys think?

http://www.nomadworld.com/products/muvo/

[doctorgonzo]

I got an Apacer 128MB pen drive from NewEgg a couple months ago for around $30 or so. It is simply awesome. I use it to transfer things between my home PC and my work PC, and I tend to download stuff at work (much faster internet connection than my dialup at home).

Get one. You won't regret it.

[Iman74]

****Update*****

Gave my wife the Zio reader with the memory card and the floppy disk drive reader and got myself a Trek Smartdrive. I keep it in my pocket all the time and use it all the time. Also, these are the kinds you need if you want to boot off it. But I have not been able to find much on that yet. Still looking.

[corosus]

i have a sony memory stick (128) that i keep on me at all times. i got it for free (don't ask) I keep my work files on it, so i always have the most recent coppy with me. and it's usefull if you have a 4 or 5 mb file you need to transfer from one pc to an other. pay attention to the cassing, it needs to be in tune with your use of the unit.

in short: i like it.

[Force Flow]

Originally posted by doctorgonzo
I got an Apacer 128MB pen drive from NewEgg a couple months ago for around $30 or so. It is simply awesome. I use it to transfer things between my home PC and my work PC, and I tend to download stuff at work (much faster internet connection than my dialup at home).

If anyone want to know, the USB 2.0 128MB model is $36, and the USB 2.0 256MB model is $59. Each from newegg.

I'm temped. :D

[kjjfish]

I've got a little 64MB Soyo Cigar.

This thing's awesome!

Fish

[Iman74]

Well my suggestion about those two on newegg, buy them if and only if they are automatically recognized on XP machines without loading drivers. Reason I say that, is so you do not need to worry about loading drivers on a PC that you want to copy some data off of, that is why I went with Trek; they already have the drivers loaded.

[swhite]

The only problem that I see with them is capacity and cost. They have come down quite a bit but for the cost of a 128 mb pen drive you can get a 20 gb hard drive by ordering from the web. I would like to see the pen drives get even cheaper before I would buy one.

[Iman74]

But come on; 20gig drive and a pen drive is apple's and oranges. The two are not even comparable.

It would make more sense to compare this to a CD that you would carry; but then you would need to really on the person having a re-writer, plus a CD can only be re-written x-amount of times before it goes bad. Besides, if you want to copy over a 3mb file, do you really want to be bothered with a CD? Are you really going to carry a 20gig hdd? Do people even really use Iomega Zip drives anymore? What is the one thing that many people do have? USB. As far as the cost goes; yeah it bothered me I paid $60 for it; but each time I reach into my pocket to copy something and then copy off it to another PC; it pays itself off everyday for just doing that.

[swhite]

It all depends on what you are doing to determine if the pen drive is worth it or not.

[Iman74]

I use it on a daily basis, transfering data between my laptop from work to my home PC. Yes I could connect it to the lan and copy over the files, but by the time I boot it up and have it ready for data transfer I could have copied the data between the usb and the PC 20x's that way.

[doctorgonzo]

You have to look at it in terms of time saved as well. How long would it take to get a CD ready to burn a 10MB file? Two, three, four minutes? Compare that to sticking the USB drive in, dragging the files to the drive, and unplugging the drive. Thirty seconds, max. Do that enough times and you will have saved an hour or two of your time, which should be worth $50 to you.

[swhite]

I agree that if you only have a small amount of data that you need to carry with you that one is of a great benefit, but larger amounts are not so convenient.

[Alex123]

I bought one off a computer show last weekend.
I paid $34.00 cash for it. 128MB. Not bad, eh?

Alex

[topnode]

Are you guys talking about the USB mobile Disk II/III? what is the difference between a mobile disk and a memory stick?

[glc]

"Memory stick" is a proprietary Sony flash memory card that gors in their cameras and some other devices. You need a reader to use it in a PC. The so called "pen" or "thumb" drives we are talking about are the same type of flash memory, but with a USB plug on them. Flash memory is pretty much flash memory, the differences being the type of interface it has to the outside world.

[kingsucka]

Great discussion! I'm sold on this storage solution and I wasn't in the market. Holds much more than a floppy and less than a CD, also reuseable. It's perfect.

Is there an industry standard in sight?

[Iman74]

I don't think it's popularity is no where near for a standard. However, I will re-itterate this, Trek Smartdrive does not require drivers on XP & 2000. Besides it being a reliable brand, I say go that way for now.

[glc]

I haven't seen a card reader that needs drivers on 2K/XP either, so I think support for flash memory is pretty much universal.

[Iman74]

I had to load drivers on a 2000 and XP box for using a Zio Reader reading Smartmedia flash cards. Granted that is not a thumbdrive, but I would think it works just the same.

[glc]

I wonder what the difference is? I just installed a PNY compact flash reader on a 2K box, and it was literally plug and play, no drivers required. Found new hardware - USB mass storage device - ready to go, came up as removable drive F in My Computer.

[brassman]

Through the month of July Kingston has a promo on their Data Traveller Pen drives. This is on their website only.
64mb $15 after rebate
128mb $29.99 after rebate
I don't remember what the 256mb is.
And there is free 2 day shipping.