USB Pendrive Thread: 256 MB USBDrive for $90 at Costco.com or 128MB $50 AR at OM

[Yo2]

These are very popular and $90 for 256MB seems like a good deal here . Of course one could also go with the sandisc cruzer on the same page (see separate thread)

Yo

Thread topic edited

Another good offer: This week OM has a 128MB USB drive for $90-$20IR-$20MIR=$50AR

 

[DestruyaUR]

I think given the choice I'd go with the uglier but cheaper one, just because it specifically says "no drivers required." So many people are mistakenly buying the first-gen keydrives and finding out they got a pre-ARM one that needs drivers and can't self-boot. The Cruzer looks like it's an ARM-equipped keydrive, but Sandisk COULD have gone with a smaller formfactor. I've seen SD-slot keys with smaller footprints - the Kanguru drive for one.

Also USB 2.0 keys are working their way onto the scene slowly but surely. Though the speeds are much higher, you're not going to get a massive speed boost out of them since they are passively-powered devices drawing juice from the USB port. Even so, 7MB/sec is many times faster than what a floppy is capable of.

For those interested in what a USB 2.0 keydrive is capable of: Link

 

[us]

it's the memory on the drive that's slow not the bus of the usb... usb1.1 can push 11?12?mbps.. which is around 1.375/1.5MB/s.... if you clock your usb drive it's nowhere near that

 

[Squalish2357]

The one in the other thread appears to be just a small form factor SD-card reader.

 

[DestruyaUR]

Originally posted by: us
it's the memory on the drive that's slow not the bus of the usb... usb1.1 can push 11?12?mbps.. which is around 1.375/1.5MB/s.... if you clock your usb drive it's nowhere near that

Yes and no - typical USB 1.1 keydrives hover just below 1MB/sec, usually around 900kb/sec for reads and 500-700kb/sec for writes. USB 2.0 devices raise the bar to around 7MB/sec reads and around 2.5MB/sec writes. But they're not going to increase much simply because the devices are passively powered by the 500 milliamps of current provided to the USB ports. Maybe sooner or later someone will make an ultra-small AC adapter-equipped keydrive capable of 20MB/sec+ reads, but it just wouldn't be practical.

 

[Jaxidian]

I think I'm jumping all over that $90 one! The no-driver self-boot aspect is a MUST!!

 

[Yo2]

Originally posted by: DestruyaUR
I think given the choice I'd go with the uglier but cheaper one, just because it specifically says "no drivers required." So many people are mistakenly buying the first-gen keydrives and finding out they got a pre-ARM one that needs drivers and can't self-boot. The Cruzer looks like it's an ARM-equipped keydrive, but Sandisk COULD have gone with a smaller formfactor. I've seen SD-slot keys with smaller footprints - the Kanguru drive for one.

Also USB 2.0 keys are working their way onto the scene slowly but surely. Though the speeds are much higher, you're not going to get a massive speed boost out of them since they are passively-powered devices drawing juice from the USB port. Even so, 7MB/sec is many times faster than what a floppy is capable of.

For those interested in what a USB 2.0 keydrive is capable of: Link

This review is interesting, though I am not sure what technical background the reviewers have. Granted the reviews appear to offer a comparison of some sort, though in the absence of a standardized USB drive test I am not sure what can be attributed to the interface and what can be attributed th the memory and the internal set-up of the respective keys.

At least I would like to understand the rationale for using sisoft's memory test - which is geared for on-board memory. And I absolutely do not understand the applicability of HDTach. HDTach is a test of data rates over an IDE/SCSI interface. I am really not sure how that applies here and whether this test was even designed to check memory scores in a comparable fashion.

Yo

 

[SleepyB]

Originally posted by: Jaxidian
I think I'm jumping all over that $90 one! The no-driver self-boot aspect is a MUST!!

Where does it say it's self-boot? Do you mean that it can boot off the drive
like into DOS mode? That would be nice beacause I have a laptop with no
floppy or CD-ROM drives, and I have to boot from the network to reinstall
OSes....

This part of the description for the USBDrive 256 MB Portable USB Storage
Drive kinda scares me:

"Data Retention: Up to 10 years"

Up to? Eeekkk!!!! :Q

 

[icantiwont]

Originally posted by: Yo2
These are very popular and $90 for 256MB seems like a good deal here . Of course one could also go with the sandisc cruzer on the same page (see separate thread)

Yo

Thread topic edited

Another good offer: This week OM has a 128MB USB drive for $90-$20IR-$20MIR=$50AR

Does anyone have the link for the one at OM?

 

[madalien]

The USB pendrive at Office Max seems to be B&M only. It is the LEXAR 128mb one. This is a fairly fast drive of these types. Maximum PC magazine did a comparison test among about eight of these and several were real dogs. I have a Nexdisk from Jung and it is comparable to the Lexar. This is a good price.

 

[Indnboy80]

Bought the USB Drive from Costco a while back. Its great, fast and no required to install. It just shows up as another drive in Windows Explorer. I do not have USB 2.0 and it still runs pretty fast.

 

[T2T III]

Are the pen drives in stock at the Costco B&M stores? Or, are they just available on-line? Thanks!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: SleepyB

Originally posted by: Jaxidian
I think I'm jumping all over that $90 one! The no-driver self-boot aspect is a MUST!!

Where does it say it's self-boot? Do you mean that it can boot off the drive
like into DOS mode? That would be nice beacause I have a laptop with no
floppy or CD-ROM drives, and I have to boot from the network to reinstall
OSes....

This part of the description for the USBDrive 256 MB Portable USB Storage
Drive kinda scares me:

"Data Retention: Up to 10 years"

Up to? Eeekkk!!!! :Q

Why does that scare you? Do you know how flash memory works? These "USB key drives" are basically just like Playstation (flash-)memory cards, except that they plug into a USB port. The cheap ones will fail and lose data sooner, the better-quality ones should last longer, but all flash-memory devices wear out and fail after so many writes. I've seen lifetimes quoted from between 10,000 to 100,000 write cycles. Not sure if the newer stuff is any better in the longevity dept, although I know that they have improved the speeds quite a bit since the early flash memory stuff.

I would never consider flash devices for archival storage, only optical. (Or magneto-optical, but that's not so popular anymore.)

 

[crzyc]

I'd get the one from compgeeks, 64 mb was $28. Works great on xp/2000 w/o drivers.

 

[JETninja]

Go to Ebay....128Mb ones go $35....256Mb for $60 (and thats a good one with Samsung memory)

I work with a buddy that got one off Ebay 2 weeks ago..loves it....