Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

USB Flash Drives: What to look for or avoid.

(1/6) > >>

nosh:
I'm probably picking up an 8GB pen drive tomorrow. Should I be looking for anything besides a good manufacturer? Or are they all plain vanilla - "one does no more or no less than the next"?

BigJim:
According to an item in one of Gizmo Richards newsletters last year there is tremendous difference in performance amongst Flash Drives. I'm sorry, but I can't provide the exact reference right now but he's been messing with them for a while his figures are impressive if not shocking. Good luck!

Lashiec:
As everything in life, more price -> better performance. Unless you want the top of the line model (which will cost you dearly), try to stay in the middle, and buy something manufactured by a well-known brand, like Kingston, SanDisk, Corsair, etc.

This is the article BigJim is talking about. And this comparison at AnandTech is also very helpful, despite its age, most of what is said there still applies today.

f0dder:
Higher price doesn't necessarily mean better performance, you could be paying just for the brand... so definitely see if you can find a review, be very careful about trusting specs published by the manufacturer, check whether speeds are giving in megabits or megabytes, and whether kilo/mega means 1000n or 1024n.

AndyM:
Decide if you want U3 or not.  If the drive comes with it and you don't want it, take the proper steps to get it off (not just delete files like I tried).

Otherwise when you plug it into a machine that doesn't have autorun disabled, or you forget to hold the Shift (?) key down, the U3 drive will load stuff onto the machine.  I think it's supposed to remove the stuff when you take out the drive, but doesn't always.  The stuff may be harmless, but people may not want you leaving droppings on their machines.

I might not have all these details right, but my point is to watch out if you want to avoid or understand the U3 behavior.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page