[Ti] Flash Drives

[Tom R. no spam]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, David DelMonte wrote:

> What's the group's recommendation on the small USB flash drives. Any
> decent ones out there? Are there any firewire equivalents?

I've used several.  Whatever was on sale I'd try one of.
Main computers used with has been G3 iBooks, also a Win
laptop with W2K and a Linux, a Gateway Desktop, a couple
of eMacs, a couple of slotload iMacs, I think that's about
all.  Not all flash drives used with all computers.

The 1st fd I got was the slowest, I learned to leave it be
for a while before pulling it from the port after dragging
the icon to the Trash, to avoid a "not removed properly"
warning.  Others are faster, both de-mountng, and copying
stuff.  The main difference these days seems to be physical
size--some are really BIG compared to others.  (All I've
tried have been 128MB, FWIW.)  I was happy to pay $50 on
deep sale for my 1st one, a CompUSA branded nicely small
one; the last one was $20 after rebate.  The one I like the
most I don't recall the brand of, and the logo is rubbed off
from the plastic casing due to it not being treated as
specially delicate, tho certainly not treated roughly.  It
is also the smallest, and the 2nd one I bought--it's
whatever was the cheapest at J&R in NYC last summer, actually
it wasn't on sale as I recall.  Just a minimum size dark
smoke gray or black plastic housing.

Size is important, both width and depth (ie both transverse
size values), if you have more than one USB port close to each
other and want to use 2 fd's, or a fd and some other USB
device like a printer, etc.  A bigger fd might block the other
USB port.  Some of them--eg Lexar or Sony, which I don't have
any of--seem to have cases much bigger than necessary.  I
have the impression the electronics are pretty much commodity
stuff these days.