Umm... what exactly can you do with a flash drive?

[SunnyD]

I got one at CompUSA today cause of the sale thing, 256meg USB 2.0 for $39.99. Hot Deals said it was a good price. Other than the obvious of store various things on it... what exactly is it useful for? I'm kindof stumped as to what I should do with it.

Can you boot from them? That'd be cool. I could put a small Linux kernel on it or something...

 

[brunswickite]

porn on the go

 

[vi edit]

They are great backup drives. I bought a bunch of 1 gig ones and put into the stores that I oversee. I wrote a two line batch file that I have windows scheduled tasks run every night that backs up our data directories on the office PC's of the stores.

It just overwrites the data from the previous day and is a nice easy way simply backing up the data at those locations.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: brunswickite
porn on the go

:Q



Cheers brunswickite :beer:

 

[Ikonomi]

If I had one, I would just use it to transfer files without having to use floppies or CDs. I don't have a lot of use for a backup drive, but it is nice (and cool) to be able to bust out this little key-sized thing and transfer a file. Guaranteed to impress your friends (who don't have them).

 

[JoeKing]

What everyone else is saying

they're nice to have when working on non networked PCs. Moving data (or mp3s you like) that are to small to "waste" a cdr on. On win98 machines they're to much of a hassle. I'm pretty sure you can boot off of them look around and see.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Ikonomi
If I had one, I would just use it to transfer files without having to use floppies or CDs. I don't have a lot of use for a backup drive, but it is nice (and cool) to be able to bust out this little key-sized thing and transfer a file. Guaranteed to impress your friends (who don't have them).

Exactly what I was going to say. I would use one as a means to transfer larger files without floppies or a CD. Very handy and more convenient (when the computer has a front USB slot) than anything else IMO.

 

[milagro]

they have nice booty powers

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I travel a lot for work, and so I use one to keep my laptop and desktop drives (or at least My Documents) synched. It saves wasting a lot of CDs, and is quicker and more convenient.

 

[Armitage]

Much nicer then Zip disks, and almost everybody has USB now. Easier & cheaper then writing a CDR to move a 100MB file.
And yes, you can bot from them .. some of our IT guys carry em for exactly that.

 

[gopunk]

what everyone else said....

but also am i the only one that finds it weird that you bought it without having an intended use for it?

 

[bdjohnson]

i use it to get files off of friends computers when i am at their house. Or it can be a sneakernet!

 

[So]

Originally posted by: bdjohnson
i use it to get files off of friends computers when i am at their house. Or it can be a sneakernet!

Great idea. Get a little brother or a midget.

Quick! Run this C&C: Generals Packet over to the other computer!

 

[DaWhim]

I have a keylogger program in mine

 

[axelfox]

They're absolutely worthless. Send yours to me for prompt disposal.

 

[rgwalt]

I use mine to transfer work between my desktop and my laptop.

R

 

[tranceport]

Originally posted by: brunswickite
porn on the go

 

[VioletSky]

Whatever you do, don't put a swap file on them. It'd work, but kill the flash chip in a day or so (swap files get LOTS of write processes).

 

[DaWhim]

Originally posted by: rgwalt
I use mine to transfer work between my desktop and my laptop.

R

I use crossover cable and run a ftp server on the desktop. speed = 6mb/s

 

[SunnyD]

My wife tried to stake claim on it last night. I asked why. She says "So I can put the digital pics on it." I opened up our current digital photo directory and said, "Hun, you've got 516meg of digital pics already. No."

 

[Fritzo]

Download the new game demos at work, have then ready to go when you get home Can do a lot with a 256 meg drive. I also keep diagnostic and driver files on mine, so they're always on my keychain when I need them. Windows ME, 2000, and XP don't need any drivers to see these drives, so they're really useful for that.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Download the new game demos at work, have then ready to go when you get home Can do a lot with a 256 meg drive. I also keep diagnostic and driver files on mine, so they're always on my keychain when I need them. Windows ME, 2000, and XP don't need any drivers to see these drives, so they're really useful for that.

HAHAHAHAH!!! Download at work! ROOOOOFLES@!!@!!!111

 

[aircooled]

I recently acquired one of these. Its a 40 gig laptop hard drive in an external USB case. Pretty nifty, but I haven't really used it yet....

 

[sharkeeper]

People that do service on the go find these invaluable...

I've had two of the cruzers (same one as you bought) go through a heavy duty washer more than once! They always come out with data intact!

Yes they come in handy for a lot of things. Install all your favorite utilities, virus scanners, removal tools, tweaks, etc. You have this wherever you go. The only place this won't work is offices that are still on NT. Thankfully, that is declining.

The speed isn't too hateful, and these drives are great especially if you have a few computers that aren't networked and you need to transfer stuff around.

Booting from it will work, just remember that flash memory does have a very finite life and installing an OS with a high queue depth (XP!) will kill it quite fast. Running a COSBI benchmark on it using small datasets with tens of thousands of iterations would probably kill it in a few hours.

Cheers!

 

[Freejack2]

I carry most of my diagnostic stuff on it. Granted all the stuff fills 2 cd's but I can fit all the daily use stuff on it. My compussr was out of it so I got the local staples to pricematch it. Still gotta send my mail in rebate though. :/

Is it me or even though these things are usb 2.0 they are slow as a snail?