I suspect my flash drive might be on its way out, was wondering what others thought...
This past weekend, my CPU died. A good friend of ours who works with my wife was cool enough to go on eBay and order me another CPU (can't afford a new computer now) plus loan me a Dell he had just collecting dust. Said it had some strange things wrong with it but should be fine.
Now, I've had this flash drive -- 4GB Corsair Readout -- for over a year. I think I got it in December 2008, or thereabouts. Anyway, around the same time (though it hadn't "met" the loaner PC yet) my Portable Firefox profile messed up. Now, I can't remember what happened, but it was a mess. I deleted it and started a new one. Didn't think too much of it. I'd had the profile for as long as the flash drive and just assumed the profile had corrupted. John has suggested that as the problem for many a support topic. Started a new profile and it worked again.
Well, I'd downloaded something my wife and I wanted to watch, went to put it on the flash drive, and I got a strange warning. Something about that it couldn't write to the drive. Tried another USB port. And another. Then the ones in the back. No luck. I kept assuming it was the PC's fault, because it wouldn't import video, only the pictures, from the digital camera. (I'm still not fully convinced the PC is blameless.) Needless to say we watched it on the computer.
Then I come into work and go to start Portable Firefox on the same flash drive. Immediately Firefox crashes. No GUI, just straight to crash, though it did give me a splash screen (which is set to disable=true in the .ini). Thought I'd be clever and rename the Data folder to _Data, make it start fresh. It starts, seems to work, I set the proxy settings, hit Google. OK. Then it crashes. I reinstall Portable Firefox, delete the Data folder, and rename _Data back to Data. I check the .ini, and it's blank. Blank. Yet only 1 byte smaller than the .ini in Other\Source. Now I start it, and it tells me I'm running it from a read-only location.
OK, this is screwy. So I back up everything important, and format the flash drive. Reinstall the Platform (though, in a rookie move, I grabbed 1.6 instead of the beta, but that's fine, I'm not in a position to hate on the red) and reinstall Portable Firefox. So far everything is running good, nothing stupid on the drive's part.
So am I looking at a flash drive that's about to die on me? Wife says I can buy a new flash drive as long as I keep it under $30, so I'm looking at this bad boy, an 8GB Patriot Xporter XT. $23 shipped. Comparatively, I paid $12 for the 4GB Readout, and ~$35 for a 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager, which mysteriously disappeared on me. (I'd try to sneak by with a $35 drive if I could, but the 16GB drives from both Corsair and Patriot jump to the $45 range, though both offer $10 mail-in rebates.)
Is there something better I could be getting for my money? Is that a pretty good drive? I've never used Patriot before, except for my camera's memory card, but I didn't get it for its name, I got it because it was the fastest memory card they (Newegg) had. Don't care if it's ugly, really, but I don't want one with moving parts, like a retractable or swivel USB plug. So it's got to have a cap.
I do know that Corsair offers a 10-year warranty, but it takes 2-3 weeks for the replacement to arrive. I need one sooner than that. And having two (one for home, for transporting shows from the Net to the TV; the other for work) was nice while it lasted (until I lost the Flash Voyager).
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You could get the one I have
http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Edp... ($27.99)
I've been using it non-stop for about 2 years now. SanDisk Cruzers were seroiusly built to run Apps of it (That's why U3's on it).
But I wouldn't completely buy a new drive unless I'm certain that my drive's broken. It's fine right now, right?
It seems to be fine, but I don't know what to make of it. Aside from the weirdness -- oh, I remember it was forgetting random bookmarks, cumulatively, each time I started it -- after a fresh profile, it seemed fine. Then everything that happened. Yeah, since the reformat it seems to be okay, but I don't know how long it will keep the peace.
Circuit City? They went out of business. They still run their website? Not sure I would trust that. Newegg has it for $24 + $3 shipping though. But SanDisk? My first flash drive was a 2GB Cruzer, and it stopped working after about six months due to the slider, it started sliding the plug out at a slight angle, which was cool because it wasn't loose, but it eventually snapped something; the drive would work intermittently. I haven't trusted a slider since (except phones, LOL, but that's different). I don't think the 2GB Cruzer was a U3 drive; though I'm curious about it, everything I've heard says U3 is inferior to PortableApps in every way, and the latter works on anything (including U3-enabled flash drives).
As far as "built to run apps" I hear some are optimized for large files; others, for small files. I would imagine one "built to run apps" would just be optimized for small files. Which is good, of course.
SanDisk has a utility to wipe the U3 out and leave you with a normal USB drive. Takes about half a minute.
That's the first thing I did with mine.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
That leaves the slider. Now, I'm not sure about the regular Cruzer line, but I have heard good things about the Cruzer Titanium line. (Can't find any Titaniums on Newegg, though.) Like I said, I had one just like it, and it was fine, until, through normal use, the USB plug got bent and stopped working.
Just wanted to point out that U3 really isn't such a big problem as you seem to present.
However, what you do with your slider in your own home is your own business.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Check out Tiger Direct. I have bought quite a bit from them and have always been happy. They have a 2Gb Cruzer for 11.99 +shipping
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Edp...
It amazes me that on the internet you can be anything you want, and yet so many people still choose to be idiots.
Update: The drive seems to work, but the PortableApps.com Platform is very slow to start up (takes longer to load with 7 apps than it did with 20-30 before) and Firefox is the same. Once it gets going it's fine, though, and this is with the phishing and attack site detection feature turned off, so it shouldn't be downloading that file/those files. At home, I tried to copy the video (a 725MB .avi file) again, and it didn't give the error, but started out estimating 65 hours, but only ended up taking about 2 minutes. Par for the course. VLC refused to play it (yet VLC Portable on my external hard drive at home plays it). I deleted it, and it went away, but a refresh brought it back as a zero-byte file. A disk check (well, both the one in Windows and the one on the PA.c Platform menu (which I realize is just CHKDSK) both returned favorable results, saying nothing was wrong, yet the process left me with the .avi saying it was 45.9MB. I deleted that and it stayed gone.
At this point I'm probably going to just get a portable hard drive, the kind that is powered by USB alone. For the price of a 16GB flash drive, I can get a 250-320GB hard drive. My Xbox 360 will make a partition up to 16GB on any FAT32-formatted USB device I plug up to it, and that really wouldn't be viable with a flash drive. But with a portable hard drive, I can get an entire 16GB partition (actually 15.5, I hear) and still have plenty of space.
And what's with all the love for SanDisk all of a sudden? A year ago, it seems like it was all about Corsair, Patriot, and OCZ. Well, I'm the Corsair fan, at least; I heard about Patriot and OCZ here as viable contenders. But USB drives (flash and hard disk based) have gone up in price in the last year or so. That 2GB SanDisk, at $12 plus some unknown amount for shipping is a few dollars more than the 4GB Corsair Flash Readout I bought a year and a half ago. Can't bring myself to do it, even if it were a more reputable brand and made from more sturdy materials.
Hope you don't mean me?
I was just trying to correct an inaccuracy in your anti-Cruzer reasoning.
The 4 gig Cruzer I got was free from Staples (on sale, and then a 15% discount coupon, a large rebate, and the last $3 was paid in Staples Rewards certificates).
I do love free.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
Free would be fine, but for my money, I'm going to get something I can depend on for a few reasons.
Actually you seemed to be correcting my anti-U3 reasoning.
And I just RMA'd my Flash Readout. 21 November 2008. Didn't know I had it so long. I thought December '08 at the earliest. Late December, at that. Anyway, they no longer advertise the Readout, and Newegg doesn't sell them. I wonder what they'll replace it with. Flash Voyager maybe? The Readout is cool, they should have stuck with them. I wouldn't mind the 8GB Readout (highest the line went) if the speeds are still good.
Tiger Direct and Newegg each have 250GB hard drives for $50, but Newegg's is refurbished, but it's also a Western Digital. I think TD's is a Memorex or Hitachi or some off brand. I have a 300GB external, but it's the big kind that needs the power brick. But it's also 7200RPM, and I've taken it to work before -- that's what I need a portable device for, mostly. I just don't like hauling the power supply along. Might have to though, if this Readout keeps acting up.