Hi, I am wondering what would be the best USB drive for use with portable apps. I am using a Sandisk Cruzer Contour which when bought was a very fast drive, but i am guessing it has been since overtaken by newer and faster drives.
The problem i have is that when ever i am using a browser in portable apps the performance can at times be a bit sluggish.
I don't want to spend a lot on a drive s it would only be for PA, but performance is essential.
Cheers in advance
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Portable Apps probably scream on a Supertalent SuperCrypt or OCZ Enyo, but they're quite pricey (Tom's Hardware: Nine USB 3.0 Flash Drives For Road Warriors*) .
Cheaper drives pretty much all have abysmal random-write performance (though some are more abysmal than others). I'm convinced that is what makes apps like Firefox and Thunderbird so sluggish. From what I can find the Cruzer's random-write performance is among the best (though take that with a grain of salt - I don't know how many different Cruzer models there are or how consistent they are).
If you'll be using the drive exclusively on PC's you have admin access to and you don't mind a little inconvenience, you might look into USB SuperCharger (ViperGeek's Blog Post).
*apparently I can't link to the Tom's Hardware review - the forum inserts a rel=nofollow.
[Link fixed, you had "hfer" rather than "href" - mod Chris]
Tom's Hardware works for me: see it here.
All flash drives represent compromise. Fortunately, portable hard drives have really come down in size. Mine is about 4"x3", half an inch thick, though it still has a 6" cable. $60 for 500GB, and it's a WD. This will outperform any flash drive at any price, not to mention the capacity.
If performance is essential, you don't want a flash drive. Running Portable Firefox off my portable hard drive, I get the same performance running the installed one at home. And I can have VLC open at the same time, playing an HD video.