Portable USB Sticks

[WhiteKnight]

I'm looking to purchase a portable USB stick like this one at think geek. Any recommedations?

 

[Nemesis77]

I have that exact same product. Mine is a 32MB version. It does what it advertises, I can store about 20 floppies full of stuff there, it has encryption, it's plug and play in W2K and XP. Not a bad product.

 

[im2smrt4u]

I have always liked those USB memory things, but for that money I would buy a USB powered zip drive. I know it is a lot larger, but it just seems much more economical...YMMV.

 

[MrBond]

<< I have always liked those USB memory things, but for that money I would buy a USB powered zip drive. I know it is a lot larger, but it just seems much more economical...YMMV. >>

Same here, although I'd be more tempted to go with a compact flash drive and reade. Heck, if you're only taking stuff between two computers, you can get two readers and a 32mb card for like $60, and you'll only have to crawl behind the pc once to hook up the reader.

 

[amdskip]

Putting data on compact flash cards works great, had to transfer files to compact flash at school because I don't have a LS-120 drive at home. Teacher didn't know what the heck I was doing

 

[nortexoid]

forget it...u can get USB 1.1/2.0 and firewire portable drives that are about the size of a 2.5" notebook drive...upto 20gb capacities

no drivers needed for most OSes - detects it as an HDD in win98se, xp, 2k

unfortunately, my dumb ass doesn't have a link...i've only seen them in person and can't recall the manufacturer (an obviously unpopular one, around here anyway...might be better known in taiwan or something)

they come with these nice leather carrying cases too..damn, i'll have to get a link for that.

 

[nortexoid]

ok...check out the USB/firewire drives from smartdisk

they're damn sweet.

 

[Strych9]

<< ok...check out the USB/firewire drives from smartdisk >>

Those are sweet...especially the smaller one.

 

[nortexoid]

yeah, the firefly, that's what i'm saying...

they're extremely popular in the mac world....because they were initially introduced as only firewire...now they come in USB 2.0

everythingusb has a brief review, and check the reviews on their site...nicest portable drive i have yet to see...and the thing is pretty damn quick...another thing i like about it - the usb or firewire port power it....no AC adapter required

 

[crypticlogin]

<< yeah, the firefly, that's what i'm saying...

they're extremely popular in the mac world....because they were initially introduced as only firewire...now they come in USB 2.0

everythingusb has a brief review, and check the reviews on their site...nicest portable drive i have yet to see...and the thing is pretty damn quick...another thing i like about it - the usb or firewire port power it....no AC adapter required >>


Do you know if it's just a laptop HDD in there? And if so, any attempts so far to bump up the space?

 

[nortexoid]

well, they have the firelite version, not the firefly one...it's up to 40gb using, AFAIK, a standard laptop hdd w/ a firewire interface...which also uses the firewire bus to provide power to the drive...so no AC adapter (optional tho for some reason)...

unfortunately (maybe fortunately actually), there's no USB 2.0 version...so it's only firewire...probably because the firewire bus power requirements are better suited for those larger capacity (namely, higher power consumption) drives...USB's power output is weak.

 

[Texun]

WhiteKnight

Depends on what you want to do with it. I use the 64meg Pen Drive and it does a great job. Very small and stores all the files I need to move projects to and from the office, plus, I can connect and pull files with any other PC in our company (We use Win2k). Anything project larger than 64 megs won't be coming home with me on the weekends. Also... since we are not allowed to DL music at work I load a few MP3's on it when I get in the mood and it plays right out of the cradle.

 

[VTrider]

I just got one of those USB pendrives over at Newegg for $55.00 cheaper!. I love this thing, I mean I had zip discs/drives up the ying yang, I ebay'd all of them and bought the 128mb model. One thing I would recommend is that you get atleast 128mb. I originally was going to get something 1/2 or 1/4 that size, but i'm happy I got this version instead! Nothing sucks more than not being able to move that 65mb - 128mb game demo between computers.

I really like those firefly USB/Firewire drives, if you can afford it I think it's probably the way to go.

-VTrider

 

[John]

I have had the 128MB Pendrive for a few months now, and it is a handy little booger. It really comes in handy when servicing other computers.

 

[WebDude]

I've been looking at the pen drives for a while. I think they would be quite useful for certain purposes. Unfortunately there are so many of them out there I got overwhelmed at the choices. To see what I mean, go to Price Watch, click on 'Storage', 'hard drives', and 'pen drive'. You then have 5 pages of links to digest, with prices all over the map. Only thing I really learned is to avoid the older generation that requires installing drivers (all the newer generation are plug n play, except for win98). If anyone has a personal recommendation I would be glad to hear it.

WebDude

 

[VTrider]

There are a lot of them out there, I have a link up there to the one I'm using (128mb) - it says 'pendrive' on it. I think they are pretty much all the same, I think some of them offer encryption protection for you data?

Check out Newegg, they have a few different ones there (that's where I got mine) and reviews.

-VTrider