Need recommendation for USB Thumb Drive

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:30:11 +0000, Shadow_7 wrote:

>> Can you put that HDD in your shirt pocket, or on your keychain?

> I seem to remember a 20GB credit card size usb hard disk. More like
> wallet size, but it'd fit into a shirt pocket. And that was five or
> more years ago for about $200, so there's probably better options out
> now.

Yeah, they're called flash/thumb/jump drives.

> The point I've been trying to make is that if you use your stick as you
> would a regular harddrive, like the one you run linux from, it will fail
> quicker than a regular hard disk will fail.

But who is ever going to do that? That's not the intended use of a flash
drive!!!

> Now there's ways to set it up to minimize it's stick useage, but if you
> do regular OS type read and writes to the OS partition like swap files,
> logging, and whatever, it will fail.

Could be, but it's a silly "comparison". That's like saying: If you tow
that 42-foot sailboat/trailer cross-country with that little Geo Metro
car, it's gonna fail.

Well, no ****.

> Now for typical useage of backups, and what not it'll likely last a good
> while. Which isn't all that impressive, I've seen 20+yo reel to reel
> tapes that are still being used and still work.

I wouldn't ever recommend that a flash drive be used for backups. The way
I see it, the main purpose of a flash/thumb drive is to make it easy to
transport data files from one location/computer to another. That's it.

Why'd you snip out all the other points I made, with no response?


--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Dan C wrote:
>> The point I've been trying to make is that if you use your stick as you
>> would a regular harddrive, like the one you run linux from, it will fail
>> quicker than a regular hard disk will fail.
>
> But who is ever going to do that? That's not the intended use of a flash
> drive!!!

Why not?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/08/i...ing-next-year/

--
Paul

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:12:36 +0000, Paul Black wrote:

>>> The point I've been trying to make is that if you use your stick as you
>>> would a regular harddrive, like the one you run linux from, it will fail
>>> quicker than a regular hard disk will fail.

>> But who is ever going to do that? That's not the intended use of a flash
>> drive!!!

> Why not?
> http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/08/i...ing-next-year/

That's not the same thing. Although we've been using the terms "flash
drive" and "thumb drive" sort of interchangeably here, we are basically
talking about the removable "thumb drive" (or "jump drive") in the
context of this discussion. What you reference above is a different thing
altogether, namely a "hard drive" which happens to use flash technology.


--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

ToddAndMargo-at-verizon.net wrote:

> Can anyone recommend me a 4 GB USB thumb drive that:
>
> 1) won't corrupt with "cp" or "rsync", Â*AND
> 2) has a write protect switch?

Why don't you use the combination of flash memory cards and a card reader
instead of a USB thumb drive?


Rui Maciel

>>>> The point I've been trying to make is that if you use your stick as
>>>> you would a regular harddrive, like the one you run linux from, it
>>>> will fail quicker than a regular hard disk will fail.
>
>>> But who is ever going to do that? That's not the intended use of a
>>> flash drive!!!
>
>> Why not?
>> http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/08/i...h-hard-drives-
in-notebooks-coming-next-year/
>
> That's not the same thing. Although we've been using the terms "flash
> drive" and "thumb drive" sort of interchangeably here, we are basically
> talking about the removable "thumb drive" (or "jump drive") in the
> context of this discussion. What you reference above is a different
> thing altogether, namely a "hard drive" which happens to use flash
> technology.

Well, according to the article they're choosing it because it is for a
laptop and saves power, which extends battery life. Now it is a special
type/brand of flash drive, but there's no indication that it is NOT
flash.

Not that your argument holds ground. It'd be like saying your digital
camera shouldn't be used for shooting video, it should only be used to
take still pictures. And your cell phone should only be used for making
phone calls, not text messaging, taking pictures, recording sound,
browsing the internet, playing .mp3's, playing video games, and whatever
other features they come with these days. Or your PDA shouldn't be able
to change the channels on your television set.

We've seem to have not only lost sight of the thread being about nntp
server recommendations. But also that a flash drive is a storage
device. And storage devices are used for running operating systems,
storing data, and many other uses.

Perhaps if flash drives cost $5 per gig or less, I wouldn't mind if they
had a limited shelf life. But as they are now, they cost much more than
an equivalent capacity harddisk. $200 for 8GB, when I can get an 80GB
hard drive for $40. You would think that for the price, it could claim
something more than fits in your pocket.

Rui Maciel wrote:
> ToddAndMargo-at-verizon.net wrote:
>
>> Can anyone recommend me a 4 GB USB thumb drive that:
>>
>> 1) won't corrupt with "cp" or "rsync", AND
>> 2) has a write protect switch?
>
> Why don't you use the combination of flash memory cards and a card reader
> instead of a USB thumb drive?
>
>
> Rui Maciel

Does the reader have a "write protect switch"?

-T

ToddAndMargo wrote:

> Does the reader have a "write protect switch"?

They should. Some card models, like the Secure Digital card, have a
read-only tab built in that the card reader should recognize and, from it's
state, see if it can write to the card or not. It's a similar system to
what was implemented in floppy disks.


Rui Maciel

Rui Maciel wrote:
> ToddAndMargo wrote:
>
>> Does the reader have a "write protect switch"?
>
> They should. Some card models, like the Secure Digital card, have a
> read-only tab built in that the card reader should recognize and, from it's
> state, see if it can write to the card or not. It's a similar system to
> what was implemented in floppy disks.
>
>
> Rui Maciel

Thank you!