Are USB thumb drives worth it?
 

Seems like the USB Thumb Drives are getting really popular. Do they make the most $$$ sense?

The pricing of these things seem awfully high - $60-$80 for a 32MB USB drive? For that price I could just buy a 128MB or 256MB compact flash card, and with an adapter, use it on any PC or MAC. In addition, I could use the CF card in a PDA or digital camera. It seems like an awful waste of $$$ to spend cash on a USB thumb drive that has limited capacity and functionality.

Also, anyone use Zip disks anymore? I've retired my dinosaur 4 years ago. Switched to CD-RW and never looked back!

I use the CF card - USB adapter combo as well. The all-in-one solution seems rather wasteful to me. I suppose some people find them slicker, or don't have use for CF/SD/ etc. cards.

Keep in mind flash RAM is usually rated for about 1 million write cycles, so those so called 'drives' are best suited as a transfer medium, not as proper hard drives.

If you have a use for SD or MMC cards, this product from SimpleTech will be attractive to you:
http://www.simpletech.com/products/c...rive/index.php

I imagine that there are or will be products with similar form factors for CF.

Added: Saw the 128MB SimpleTech product for $55 at zones.com.

[This message has been edited by lensman (edited 02-16-2003).]

Another alternative that I have that works like a charm is the Iomega 40MB Clik PC drive. They seem to be going for $10-20 on eBay.

I would expect to see the price of USB thumb drives come down as they become more popular and larger in size.

These are becoming the product of choice for those looking to move high amounts of data efficiently between PCs. Dell is talking about phasing out floppy disk drives in place of thumb drives.

Note: There is disussion of having the next generation of USB devices support direct connection to non PC devices. First in mind are printers, with other devices in consideration.

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Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
www.biztrip.com

Here's a 64mb drive for $26.00

http://store.yahoo.com/meritline/mer64usbpend.html

Edited to add:

Don't bother with that. Here's a 128mb for 39.99 after a 20 dollar rebate:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...RCCODE=WEM424C


[This message has been edited by MedEdGuy (edited 02-17-2003).]

One million write cycles is quite a bit, but yes as long as you don't use it as your primary storage medium.

I use a 265MB pen drive daily. I use to mirror my files on the server in my office, using Microsoft's briefcase. At the end of the day, I plug the pen drive in, right click on the briefcase housed on the pen drive to "update all".

Pen drives are ideal for travel, but one thing you should do is create a briefcase on your laptop HDD that acts as a mirror of the pen drive. Just in case...

For longer term storage, I also use a portable HDD.

I use a 64mb thumbdrive to transfer files between various PCs and to keep my most important files with me. Works perfectly.

Thanks MedEdGuy, excellent find!

Fry's has a 64MB drive for sale at $ 10. I keep a pdf copy of my passport and visas on my USB drive.

I have one of these drives, and I'll send it out for free (well, you pay postage).

I borrowed one from a co-worker (and still borrowing it) a few months ago. I've yet to use it, it just sits in the bottom of my briefcase and goes back and forth with me. I use infared on my laptop when I need to transfer files to other folks that I'm meeting with, because usually they have laptops as well (that have IR too). If I need to transfer another size of file, I have the floppy disk (which is sometimes easier than trying to get to the back of a computer) or CD-R's. I think if the thumbdrives were a lot smaller - like the size of a quarter or something, it might be more practical.

I ordered the 128MB one I mentioned above, and it's actually not much bigger than a quarter. Plus, it's a cool translucent purple color! http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

For notebook transfer, some other possibilities are:
1. Network connection - WiFi ad hoc mode.
2. Cardbus compact flash adpater.

I think thumb drives are still a better investment thanCF cards/adapters worth the same price. They're hot swappable and you get more write cycles and better compatibility ^ Here's a useful buyer's guide: http://www.pickyguide.com/computers_...ves_guide.html