USB Flash Drives

[Seekermeister]

I've never had one, but am thinking of buying one. Outside of features such as locking, encryption or capacity, is there anything to look for that would make one drive better than another? I have noticed marked differences in the prices of certain brands and have wondered what a person was paying for...brand name?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

also casing and moisture resistance..prefer SanDisk(don't like U3 tho) but as Titanium not fond of the plastic button usb popup/out types ..currently using PNY (1gb @Staples $20 straight out the door right now) as I like the removable caps/end pieces ..allowing plug into older usb ports...

 

[Gautama2]

I've got the aluminum OCZ 1gb Rally2. Accidently dunked it in the sink this morning, still worked great 5 min later. This one is also really thin so it doesnt cover other usb ports.

 

[Seekermeister]

Am I correct to assume that once one of these drives is plugged into a PC that you use it exactly like any other partition of the system? In other words, you could install a program on it like elsewhere? How about programs that are normally registered, how could a program such as that function if used on another computer other than the one on which the program was installed in the first place?

 

[JasonE4]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
Am I correct to assume that once one of these drives is plugged into a PC that you use it exactly like any other partition of the system? In other words, you could install a program on it like elsewhere? How about programs that are normally registered, how could a program such as that function if used on another computer other than the one on which the program was installed in the first place?

Programs designed to run on flash drives

 

[Gautama2]

Also flash drives use the FAT file system.

 

[Sforsyth]

I'd get one that won't break off a keychain like mine did.

 

[Seekermeister]

Originally posted by: Gautama2
Also flash drives use the FAT file system.

I'm not sure that it is a good idea, but while Googling, I saw some mentions of reformatting the drive to NTSF for performance.

 

[Gautama2]

meh, i get 26mb/s read and 20 write, im fine

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister

Originally posted by: Gautama2
Also flash drives use the FAT file system.

I'm not sure that it is a good idea, but while Googling, I saw some mentions of reformatting the drive to NTSF for performance.

I think that FAT32 gives better performance on smaller volumes, while using less disk space.

 

[Seekermeister]

Originally posted by: Gautama2
meh, i get 26mb/s read and 20 write, im fine

That's alot slower than the design maximum speed of 480MB/s, but then it seems that nothing is ever as fast as it's cracked up to be.

 

[Seekermeister]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Seekermeister

Originally posted by: Gautama2
Also flash drives use the FAT file system.

I'm not sure that it is a good idea, but while Googling, I saw some mentions of reformatting the drive to NTSF for performance.

I think that FAT32 gives better performance on smaller volumes, while using less disk space.

Hmm, are you saying that 1GB of data on FAT32 is not equal to 1GB on NTSF?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Seekermeister

Originally posted by: Gautama2
Also flash drives use the FAT file system.

I'm not sure that it is a good idea, but while Googling, I saw some mentions of reformatting the drive to NTSF for performance.

I think that FAT32 gives better performance on smaller volumes, while using less disk space.

Hmm, are you saying that 1GB of data on FAT32 is not equal to 1GB on NTSF?

I may have been wrong about that. I was going on a distant memory which I think was confused. I believe what I was thinking of was the difference between FAT16 and FAT32. FAT32 uses space more efficiently than FAT16 does do to smaller cluster sizes.

 

[Seekermeister]

Checking, I found this:

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

The only advantage that I can see for FAT32, is that it is accessible by more OSs.

 

[tweeve2002]

My sandisk 1GB USB flash drive went though the wash after letting it dry for almost a week it worked just fine (that was without opening it up to dry it).

 

[Blain]

Can I load XP Pro on a 4GB USB drive?

 

[Kelnoen]

Originally posted by: Blain
Can I load XP Pro on a 4GB USB drive?

You can load XP pro on a 256mb USB drive!

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html