Thumb Drives

[Rob Williams]

So, anybody use these on a regular basis besides me?

Tis all I want to know :cool:

[Jakal]

Yeah I've got a PNY 512 for swapping over music or files for friends. As well as software for people without internet service. I had a PNY 256meg but I stuck it in a bad usb port and it fried. I met a man washed and dried his pny and it still worked. Says something about the quality!

[T-Shirt]

Very handy, use them all the time to
take photos to the kodak kiosk for quick prints
carry tech tools/apps for PC repair and upgrades
general file save /store /distribution to computers without network/internet/broadband connections.
My son's school recently upgrade MOST of their computers, no more floppies (yay!) and CD/DVD burner is only on the teacher computers and email is restricted, so USB drives were recommended for moving homework/files/browser favorites to and school.

[sbrehm72255]

I've got 3, Corsair, X-Micro and some no-name I got as a gift from a old Army buddy.............;) I use them all the time when I go to my sons house to download large files (I'm extremely bandwidth limited). Couldn't ask for a easier way to transfer data and files.

[liqnit]

i'm using mine which is genric 1GB and it works like a charm.
i really thonk it one of the best inventions of the century

[BLuKnight]

I use my 512 SanDisk all the time. I put my 256 SanDisk through the wash twice. After letting it dry completely, it still worked fine. I'm definately going to stick with SanDisk. :)

[maddmaxx]

Well now I have thumb drive envy. Thanks.:D

[BLuKnight]

Of course, no thumb drive is ever big enough. I filled up my 512 so fast. I'd get a 2GB or something, but I just got a laptop so my thumb drive doesn't need to pack as much in it.

[Jakal]

Did you check out the review of the <a href ="http://www.techgage.com/review.php?id=3718">Corsair Voyager?</a>
4 gigs of swappable space in the palm of your hand. Imagine being able to boot a computer from one of those? lol I think that'd be a neat idea, being able to use campus pc's by rebooting them and changing the bios settings. Yes, I've run across computers on 3 seperate college campuses you can do that on.

[sbrehm72255]

I was going to try that with my Corsair, but I don't know if 1 gig is large enough to boot XP64....................:(

[BLuKnight]

That's where they're going eventually. You wouldn't store the entire Windows OS on an internal flash drive. Most likely, just the key core processes of the kernel. However, once they become affordable, I don't see any reason why you couldn't run the entire OS off of an 8 or 10 gig flash drive. MS would have to come up with something good at keeping that windows folder nice tidy and compact.

[T-Shirt]

There are 4 gig drive available, and Intel announced today the expect NAND flash to begin taking over from hard drive for laptops begining next year (obivously a high end option to start) Half the power consumption and twice the boot speed in the demo version.
Over at www.bigbruin.com, BB tried a raid, using 4 thumbdrives
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/article.php?item=thumbraid&file=1
with some sucess (some problems due to a bad hub or cheap flash drives) but as it showed It could work. (imagine this permenently attached to a usb or sata 2 port as a boot drive)

[madscientist327]

I have 4. 2 512s one 256 and one 128 I gave all of them to my family except the two 512s.

[madscientist327]

By the way... check out these portable applications for the drives. http://portableapps.com/suite http://torpark.nfshost.com/

[tugovony]

I only have a 256mb thumb drive.

I use it to backup schoolwork, and for going back and forth between home and computer lab at school.

[werty316]

Well I don't ahve a thumb drive but I do use an external 80GB for backup of software oince and a while.

[izzie]

Wish I owned a thumb drive. Maybe will get one for Christmas gift. Only 6 more months to go to Christmas :(

[BLuKnight]

Well, I just saw this article on Digg with the 32 bit hard drive. http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/21/samsung_unveils_ssd/ Have a look. It makes the strongest of geeks drool. I wouldn't mind having those and putting Windows on it. 32 gig is more than enough for windows and the swap file.

[LOOP]

Well, I just saw this article on Digg with the 32 bit hard drive. http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/21/samsung_unveils_ssd/ Have a look. It makes the strongest of geeks drool. I wouldn't mind having those and putting Windows on it. 32 gig is more than enough for windows and the swap file.

I run Windows XP on an 8 gigabyte partition. Works excelently, and whenever I get a crash and it needs to re-check the harddrive during bootup it goes SUPER FAST, since it only needs to check the 8 gigabyte partition.

[SqueekyClean]

Wish I owned a thumb drive. Maybe will get one for Christmas gift. Only 6 more months to go to Christmas :(

Did you try Ebay? On Ebay you can find thumbdrives for as cheap as 30 bucks. Can often get thumb drives for about half retail price.

[fullpicture]

I run Windows XP on an 8 gigabyte partition. Works excelently, and whenever I get a crash and it needs to re-check the harddrive during bootup it goes SUPER FAST, since it only needs to check the 8 gigabyte partition.

Why are you running Windows XP on an 8 gigabyte partition?

[DarkSynergy]

Nothing wrong with running on a 8GB partition. Windows only really needs 4-5 GB of HDD space to install on. I usually make my Windows partition 12GB but thats just me. 8 is more than enough in my opinion.


As for thumb drives, I have never had one untill this weekend when Ageia gave us each one with launch information on them. They were only 128mb but thast 128mb of mobile storage then I had before so I can't complain. In just the 2 days I have been back home, I have come to realize that I dont know how I survived without a thumb drive of some sorts before.

[ducarti]

As for thumb drives, I have never had one untill this weekend when Ageia gave us each one with launch information on them. They were only 128mb but thast 128mb of mobile storage then I had before so I can't complain. In just the 2 days I have been back home, I have come to realize that I dont know how I survived without a thumb drive of some sorts before.

You said you came to realize that you can't believe how you survived without one. What exactly do you use your thumb drive for that you need it that badly?

[Angela Miller]

I only have a 256mb thumb drive.

I use it to backup schoolwork, and for going back and forth between home and computer lab at school.

I have the same size and use it for the exact same reason.