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

Talk about raising a dead thread!

I have to admit that reading about the prices and the sizes of the drives as they were in '03 was interesting.

Didn't click, cuz I have no reason to think this isn't spam, but it's pretty funny to read this conversation 4 years later...

:)

I use the zip. I never had much luck with the cd rw - gave up on them right away. But I am also using several thumb drives for the off premise backups of my companies critical files. They are small and easy to transport.

Was wondering what poor rock OP was crawling from with the prices and size constraints - then I finally saw the date of the thread.

applications
 

I put applications on them,
like my slingbox slingplayer, and my mozilla firefox lite, with all my bookmarks, passwords, etc.

So, I got to any computer, and plug it in and have instantly my slingplayer without have to install software or configure, or I can run my firefox, without having to download, etc.
works great.
2GB drives can be had for 30$ or so AR.

LOL at what we used to pay for flash memory. I recently bought a 4GB CF card for $15 AR, and on black friday I got a 1GB USB key for less than $10.

Of course, I remember buying a new-fangled, 10 MB external drive that was over $500 IIRC back in the early 90s.

I got my 2GB u2 thumb drive. All those programs are great to have just in case. From Open office to firefox and my email client to a ftp software...

In 4 years time, someone will raise this thread again, and we'll be trying to remember what usb drives were, let alone zip drives.

Recently purchases a 1G for around $15. When I travel I no longer take my laptop as I have a blackberry and all of my files on the thumb drive. My shoulder and back thanks me every day on the road.

Vista ReadyBoost baby!

This is just too funny... the old prices paid for hardware...

It seems that every year the price drops and the memory doubles...

Now they are even using flash instead of harddrives (with discs) in laptops... crazy...

If anything they have gotten too small- I had one (gig) fall off my keychain a bit ago... rather annoying... now I use gmail for a lot of my documents...

Funny stuff. At a technology conference I attended last month, one vendor was handinig out 256 meg USB drives just for sitting through a very brief presentation and adding yourself to their mailing list. I think another one had some really small (storage) drives out in a bowl at their booth next to the mint tins.

Actually I got 8 of the 256MB free from officemax. For every 50$ gift card you bought for holiday season, you get a thumb frive. And I was buying some things from officemax

<OMNI>That could be the new FT sport, revive half-decade old threads here and there and we can laugh about the good ol' days </OMNI>
;)

Well, four years on from the OP, I've just bought a 2GB memory stick in Fiji for approx £20 only to discover I could have gotten the same thing from another retailer for £15. This is in Suva where imported IT equipment tends to be expensive but I had a need and at these prices, I couldn't care less.

I was at a conference two weeks ago and they were given away as booth swag. 256MB thumb drive and a 4 port mini USB hub. ^

I would think that thumb drives would be like candy nowadays. I have a 512mb Sandisk thumb drive and I wouldn't part with that thing for the world! It's perfect for carrying various 'important documents' with me whenever I may need them.