External Micro HD's or Flash Drive?

[stoneysilence]

Anybody got any experience with the Micro External HD's similar to this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136013

I just got voted into my colleges Student Government as a Senator and the computer I am using doesn't have the C++ compiler on it that I need. Since I have to have office hours and sit in there doing nothing for long amounts of time (10 hours a week), I need that program to do my HW on. So I decided I would buy a small micro external hd or a bigger flash drive. I currently have a Sandisk Cruzer (its pretty slow because i use it now to save my hw on at school) in which I can put any size SD card into. But I was worried about the speed (everything is USB1.1 at the college and at my home) of the flash drive being too slow. Are the Micro hard drives any faster. My USB gonna be the limiting factor? Anybody use them?

 

[btcomm1]

If you only have access to usb 1.1 then the USB will be the limiting factor in speed.

 

[stoneysilence]

So it wouldn't matter if I used a Flash drive or a external 3600/4200rpm micro hd? They both would be capped by the USB 1.1?

 

[Madwand1]

Microdrives were really cool a few years ago, where they would give you great capacity for the money for cameras / etc., and also good performance compared to what was available in flash.

But that's changed.. Flash comes in large capacity and is much faster and much more affordable than it used to be. Microdrives have improved as well, but it's generally a losing battle now.

USB 1.1 is going to be a big bottleneck, so in this case, assuming that (a) you're going to be stuck with USB 1.x (b) you're careful with the microdrive and don't drop it, etc., (c) the microdrive is robust enough to hand the times that you're not so careful (d) it gives a good price/capacity advantage, then it could be fine.

But (a)-(d) are stacked against you, so odds are that a normal flash drive would make more sense.

USB 1.1 is so slow, that avoiding it altogether with firewire or something else would probably be a better approach.

 

[stoneysilence]

Well Newegg has a offbrand 6gb micro drive for $25 so can't really go to wrong with that:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822706004
Cheapest name brand HD is a 6gb Seagate for $50:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148132

While the cheapest non-HD SD card is 4gb and is $30:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208086
Or a bit better one for $40:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820163159

So all are about the same price.

I don't think any of the computers at my school have anything but USB 1.1.

 

[stoneysilence]

Ok, gonna get a 4gb SD card. But I need a new "reader". I have a Sandisk Cruzer but it is USB1.1 only (http://tinyurl.com/2elag9). So I looked around and went out and bought a Sandisk MobileMate but it's horrid. It feels like it is scratching my SD card when I insert it. And I cannot store the SD card inside it while traveling like I can with the Cruzer. Hope Bestbuy will let me return it.

Anybody know of anything similar but is USB 2? Can be Micro SD or SD (since all my cards are in those formats).