anyone have a Sandisk Cruzer USB flash drive?

[Kaido]

My cg class requires zip disks or a usb portable drive for storage. I have a 128mb Lexar right now, but it's full of my other computer stuff most of the time. So I'm looking for an additional drive just for the class. I found a 256mb Sandisk Cruzer mini USB flash drive on Newegg for about $37 that looks pretty good. 5-star rating and has good reviews. Anyone had experience with these and care to comment?

link

 

[Tremulant]

My dad has one (to backup his data on), but I use it for transporting documents to and from school. It's good, I've had no problems with it.

 

[Kaido]

sounds good, I'll order one when I get home from school thanks!

 

[LikeLinus]

I have one work bought for me and I like it a lot.

BUT, If I had to do it all over again, I would have tested them out in person. The body of it is small, but thick. It blocks the USB port above or below it. So if you are using it in a location with only 2 usb ports and you have, say a mouse or keyboard plugged in...you have to disconnect one! Or a laptop that only has two ports and you're using an external mouse.

It that respect...its a pain in the butt. Otherwise they are good usb flash drives.

 

[Bonesdad]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
I have one work bought for me and I like it a lot.

BUT, If I had to do it all over again, I would have tested them out in person. The body of it is small, but thick. It blocks the USB port above or below it. So if you are using it in a location with only 2 usb ports and you have, say a mouse or keyboard plugged in...you have to disconnect one! Or a laptop that only has two ports and you're using an external mouse.

It that respect...its a pain in the butt. Otherwise they are good usb flash drives.

If that is a concern for you, just pick up a 6' USB extension cable, lay the receiving end of the cable on your desk. Makes it ezier to plug and unplug.

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
I have one work bought for me and I like it a lot.

BUT, If I had to do it all over again, I would have tested them out in person. The body of it is small, but thick. It blocks the USB port above or below it. So if you are using it in a location with only 2 usb ports and you have, say a mouse or keyboard plugged in...you have to disconnect one! Or a laptop that only has two ports and you're using an external mouse.

It that respect...its a pain in the butt. Otherwise they are good usb flash drives.

If that is a concern for you, just pick up a 6' USB extension cable, lay the receiving end of the cable on your desk. Makes it ezier to plug and unplug.

The whole purpose of a USB Flash key is for portability. I'm an IT Manager and I'm not going to walk around to the 30+ computers and servers with a 6" cable in my pocket. Not to mention the fact that I use it at home and friends house.

That sort of kills the whole purpose of the drive.

 

[CP5670]

I have this item; my dad got it for free from where he works. Read speeds are excellent (~8MB/sec), the write speeds are much lower but quite acceptable for text (~800k/sec), although there seems to be significant latency for writes.

Also, I don't know what you are saying about the thickness; this particular model is thin enough to not cover any neighboring USB ports. I can plug it into a laptop right above a mouse connection just fine. Probably the most annoying thing about it is its box/packaging, which is extremely difficult to open.

 

[FullRoast]

There may be some confusion about which product we are talking about. I have a 256MB Cruiser Mini that I am very happy with. I have been using it at work almost every day for the last 3-4 months. The body is thin and narrow, not much bigger than the USB connector, link.

There is older Cruiser (not mini) that is much bigger. I use the Cruiser Mini in stacked USB connectors with other devices plugged into adjacent ports with no problem. Great product.

 

[LikeLinus]

Nope, I've got a Cruzer Mini 128mb. It wont fit in the slots above or below in the any of my machines at home. if another device is plugged in It also wont fit in Dell Poweredge servers, Dell 4600/2400 and Inspiron 5100's. If something is plugged in the other slots, this just barely won't make it in. My other 2 USB keys fit just fine.

Maybe there is a difference between the 128mb Mini and the 256mb?

 

[StraightPipe]

I love my cruzer mini.

I've actually had 2.

the only problems i've ever had were:

1. tried to use it on win 98 (with no internet connection) so i couldnt install it
it does work perfect on XP.

2. I've lost both of mine because i attached them to my keychain.

1st time i cut the lanyard so that the little clip was on the keychain, and i could un-buckle it for use. --lost it of the keychain.

2nd time is just hooked the tiny string through my keychain, little cord broke, lost the card again.



anyway, if you can hang on to it the 256 cruzermini is great. i paid $40 for them long ago. very small design allows them to fit most usb ports.


now if only they can get the price of the 1GB stick down, so i can carry DivX rips.

i'm going to newegg to buy another (since they're down to $37)

 

[WobbleWobble]

I've had two. I think they work great.

There are 2 versions of the MiniCruzer. The older one is fatter and the newer one is thinner but doesn't have the lock protection. I got mine at Costco, but in Canada for $50 CAD.

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

its a good buy if you need it

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
I've had two. I think they work great.

There are 2 versions of the MiniCruzer. The older one is fatter and the newer one is thinner but doesn't have the lock protection. I got mine at Costco, but in Canada for $50 CAD.

Thats it...Mine has lock protection, but it's still a Mini. It's just fat enough to make another usb item not fit next to it. Thats it's only downfall..i love it otherwise

 

[Kaido]

It'll be hooked up to a Mac keyboard most of the time, and my Dell at home the rest. The class has those Mac iFruit boxes with Photoshop 5.5, and I use a Dell 4600 with Photoshop CS at home, so its basically to save stuff on and transport it between systems. The keyboard has a USB port at each end, and the mouse uses one, so the keychain drive will use the other. My 128mb Lexar fit fine and it's a fatty. It's either that or buy several 100mb Zip disks, and I don't have a Zip reader at home...so the memory stick is smaller and better for me.

The 256mb Cruzer mini is the one I'm looking at. Does it have a keychain hook on it? I don't see one in the picture. I have one of those long keychain necklace things at home that I can attach it to if I need to. It will stay in my bag most of the time, not on my keychain (since the Lexar is already there). Thanks for the input everyone! I'm ordering one tonight

 

[WobbleWobble]

Both the fat one and skinny one don't have a keychain hook but there is a smaller hook that fits the included necklace.

 

[stickybytes]

I never had a problem with my sandisk cruzer mini. Writes flawlessly. I use it to transport updated virus definitions to all my computers without internet access.

 

[Arcanedeath]

I've got one, it works great got it for $40 us on a day after thanksgiving sale at bestbuy in '03 I use it to carry around driver files, doc's and Mcaffre Stinger + spybot and adaware + a couple other assorted diag tools, works great and I set it up as a bootable drive so it loads dos and has fdisk, format, ect... so if the PC it's pluged into supports booting from USB it's great, and mine is the small one w/out the lock, I can put stuff in a USB port even w/ it also in a slot right next to it.

 

[BT7990]

Been using a 256 minicruzer for over a year. Never had any real issues with it. Very dependable.

 

[gpgofast]

I've had two. The first one was slightly thicker. It actually failed and I returned it to Costco for a replacement(got to love Costco) and the new one is thinner and fits nearlly every port without problems. Not sure what caused the first one to fail. GP

 

[DrVos]

Originally posted by: Kaido
It'll be hooked up to a Mac keyboard most of the time, and my Dell at home the rest. The class has those Mac iFruit boxes with Photoshop 5.5, and I use a Dell 4600 with Photoshop CS at home, so its basically to save stuff on and transport it between systems. The keyboard has a USB port at each end, and the mouse uses one, so the keychain drive will use the other. My 128mb Lexar fit fine and it's a fatty. It's either that or buy several 100mb Zip disks, and I don't have a Zip reader at home...so the memory stick is smaller and better for me.

The 256mb Cruzer mini is the one I'm looking at. Does it have a keychain hook on it? I don't see one in the picture. I have one of those long keychain necklace things at home that I can attach it to if I need to. It will stay in my bag most of the time, not on my keychain (since the Lexar is already there). Thanks for the input everyone! I'm ordering one tonight

Careful, I've tried hooking up the 256MB MiniCruzer to the mac keyboards at school.... it doesn't work. It seems that the thumbdrives require more power than what the keyboard can provide. It's it or miss with thumbdrives though, because some people in my previous classes were abe to use their drives.

 

[ronnaZ]

very handy....worth buyin

 

[MonstaThrilla]

I wholeheartedly disagree with all the positive reviews here. This flash drive does NOT work very well. I just gone one today, and I've been testing it tranferring files from my WinXP box to my Powerbook. It works a few times, then all of a sudden the OS's can't read it anymore. When it does work, it crashes WinXP Explorer before totally conking out. Works well in MacOSX though until I move it to the WinXP box.

Maybe I just got a junky one...

 

[beatle]

I have a Cruzer MICRO (the latest and smallest) and it's great. Too bad the MP3 companion that you can use with it is garbage.

 

[MonstaThrilla]

Originally posted by: MonstaThrilla
I wholeheartedly disagree with all the positive reviews here. This flash drive does NOT work very well. I just gone one today, and I've been testing it tranferring files from my WinXP box to my Powerbook. It works a few times, then all of a sudden the OS's can't read it anymore. When it does work, it crashes WinXP Explorer before totally conking out. Works well in MacOSX though until I move it to the WinXP box.

Maybe I just got a junky one...

UPDATE: Alright I've done a little trouble shooting, and it was the cheap GE USB hub that I was connecting it to that was giving me problems. Plugging it directly to my PC works fine from what I can tell.

Sorry for the wrongheaded comment.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: DrVos

Originally posted by: Kaido
It'll be hooked up to a Mac keyboard most of the time, and my Dell at home the rest. The class has those Mac iFruit boxes with Photoshop 5.5, and I use a Dell 4600 with Photoshop CS at home, so its basically to save stuff on and transport it between systems. The keyboard has a USB port at each end, and the mouse uses one, so the keychain drive will use the other. My 128mb Lexar fit fine and it's a fatty. It's either that or buy several 100mb Zip disks, and I don't have a Zip reader at home...so the memory stick is smaller and better for me.

The 256mb Cruzer mini is the one I'm looking at. Does it have a keychain hook on it? I don't see one in the picture. I have one of those long keychain necklace things at home that I can attach it to if I need to. It will stay in my bag most of the time, not on my keychain (since the Lexar is already there). Thanks for the input everyone! I'm ordering one tonight

Careful, I've tried hooking up the 256MB MiniCruzer to the mac keyboards at school.... it doesn't work. It seems that the thumbdrives require more power than what the keyboard can provide. It's it or miss with thumbdrives though, because some people in my previous classes were abe to use their drives.

yeah my 128mb lexar works fine on the keyboard. the mac does have usb ports on the side of the case (its the old all-in-one box/monitor with a transparent colored plastic case), so I'll use those if the 256 doesn't work.