Does using portable apps require any particular specifications from a USB drive? Can anyone suggest one with solid performance at a reasonable price?
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I've been using generic devices I purchased through play.com in Europe. These are really just badge engineered devices from usbdevices.co.uk. Until recently these have proven to be adequate for portableapps. (Firefox 3.0.3 is slower than previous versions, which given that 3.0.3 on other platforms is significantly faster than 2.x was in all cases.)
My use of portableapps is occasional; I'm a Mac user by choice who is forced to use Windows machines when visiting clients. What I use by choice is on the stick. But as my requirements are not mission critical the slight slow-down from these play.com devices is ignorable.
corsair flash voyager. I got mine from newegg for $20USD, they may have gone down since then. They handle FFPE3 very well, as well as running a few other programs at the same time.
I find the performance solid.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
What do you call reasonable price, huh??
That can change a lot.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
I'm not looking to spend fifty dollars, but anything less than that would be acceptable. I'm mostly just concerned with getting the best bang for my buck.
Sorry, I can't help you then. Recently I've been looking for a new drive (SSD to be precise), but apparently that's not close to what you're looking for.
But maybe others will use this information.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
Yeah, no. Solid State Hard Drives (which I must presume to be your meaning) have shown themselves unreliable as they burn out quite quickly, which is why flash drives don't generally hold as much as a hard drive. My iomega portable hard drive (100 GB at $100) works a lot better. As far as swordofsutekh is concerned I'd suggest something name brand (though not necessarily commercially known) for a drive. Generics are fine if you don't care about support and speed but, for a drive with good speed I'd probably have to go with Verbatim (I had one for about a year before it broke do mostly to my recklessness.)
Also note that a U3 drive (though they are nice) may not work on some computers. Also some standard security programs (that oft time come with flash drives) will be blocked by some restricted computers. (I was on some ridiculously restricted computers though, stupid school-at least LC3 doesn't block me.)
Burn out? I doubt it. Probably some problem with controller, they happen.
I'm looking for SSDs because of speed (eSATA, of course), I don't need even 16 GB, so HDDs are usually not an option. I've been thinking only about Velociraptor, but it's definitely not worth the price (~$250 for 74 GB here).
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
yeah, that might work since it's basically a large flash drive. I've seen a flash drive that holds 16GB for about a hundred which is the equivalent of a SSD version minus the speed (because the SSD can use SATA whereas a Flash Drive is limited by USB 2.0. Still I've heard quite a few people report that even the smaller ones burn out though, not as quickly as say a 40GB version.
Curious, do you plan on using the SSD as a primary hard drive then attach a larger regular drive (some people have done this with some success, they still burned out though.)?
Get a Kingston brother. I've had an old 1Gb datatraveler for almost 5 years now. I'm still using it, though I lost the cap a long time ago, and it has been through the washer AND dryer more than a few times. As far as costs go, I get everything from newegg. They had a 8Gb thumb drive for $9.99 the other day!
Yeah my new drive is 8gb datatraveller, really happy so far with performance, seems to be prety quick and reliable
Back at u brother, that's the mark of a good Kingston. lose your cap and u know it'll last.
i'm a big fan of the cruzer drives from sandisk. retractable plug, so no cap to lose, and i've never had a problem with speed or data loss or anything of that nature.
http://tinyurl.com/cruzermicro
yeah man, I thrashed one for years, bought one of the first ones, i treated it pretty bad and it lasted for ages, they have a new metal one that should be pretty tough..
This summer I bought an 8 GB Cn Memory flash drive in Germany for 25 euros (around $40 USD at the time). It is the worst POS I have ever seen. It came with trial versions of commercial apps that all set off virus warnings on my computer, one free gigabyte of online storage at an incredibly lame hosting company (who offered the same deal to anybody visiting the site), and runs unacceptably slow for even the most trivial tasks. It almost makes me wonder if it is a counterfeit product.
I recommend getting a Portable Hard Drive. I currently use 2 Western Digital Portable Hard Drives (1x 120gb, 1x 160 gb) and find the practicality of it is simply unbeatable. They are bigger than USB's but still pocket sized. They are a little pricier but well worth it and becoming cheaper all the time. The 120gb I bought for $110 AUD, then 3 months later I picked up the 160gb from the same store for the same price. Now their advertising a 320gb one at the same store and that is physically the same size but comes in a range of colours for, you guessed it, $110. The physical size is 12x8x1.5 (CM).
Heres an aged review of the WD 160gb hard drive. Please note the price has come WAY dowm -
http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/storage/0,239029473,339272698,00.htm
PortableApps.com Advocate
Can't recommend against the WD Passport. Large capacity with a small size (and the more compact the drive, the more resistant it generally is to shock) and no external power needed.
Vintage!
I have a Transcend Jetflash V10 4Gb, and it works like a marvel, can run several apps at once without 'lagging'. I recommend this drive to everyone!!!
This drive is also reasonable priced - $17.22 on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-TS4GJFV10-JetFlash-Flash-Drive/dp/B000M4...
iLike Mac's
I have the black 8Gb version of that. No problems here.
Also reasonably priced on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-TS8GJFV10-JetFlash-Flash-Drive/dp/B000M4...
i agree, they are good drives that are resonably priced
iLike Mac's
I have the 8gb model, and with the exception of it retracting as I try to insert it (which I knew it would wear out before I bought it), it is a very nice drive. I've had mine for almost a year now without any problems. Runs faster on my W2K machine at work quicker than my XP machine at home, though. I switched to a portable HDD, though, only because my laptop quit on my me and I purchased an enclosure for the new HDD I had recently put in it.
Definitely not under the $50 mark but still, for pure style this has to be mentioned. Don't flame me too hard please...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/a8dd/
As soon as this ones sold in Australia I think I'll have to give it a look over : )
Hey John, this is a winning concept for an official PortableApps.com branded portable
jk
PortableApps.com Advocate
Very Nice.
Lexar JumpDrives.
I have a 2GB that I got for Christmas, works great, comes with file encryption, file shredding, everything. (even though I never use that. I just use portable apps stuff on it.) They were fairly cheap, but decent.
!!
My first flash drive was a lexar and it broke before it ever worked. It could've just been 1 bad drive but still, the support guy told me to do numerous things all of which I knew wouldn't work before implementation, either because they didn't matter or I tried it already.
If you don't need a lot of space: get a memorex 256 MB at an office max for about eight bucks. You can look online for maybe a bigger flash drive maybe 16 GB for thirty dollars off Ebay. I don't recommend external hard drives because they're a little expensive (60-120 dollars) and if you drop it in a particular position, you can break the disks in them (i have expirience) but they have a large capacity (i think up to 250 GB). I personally use a 2GB Cruzer U3 Micro (about $20) with the U3 platform stripped out from it. I also have a backup memorex 256 MB. They both work great. Haven't had a problem since i've had them. What do you need a flash drive for?
I personally think that you should experiment with your own flash drives and if you don't like it, return it and get a new one.
PLUS: Get GEOSHELL portable (still under development) for your flash drive. It's AWESOME!!!
*And Firefox Portable (i'm very dependent on that browser).
What operating system would you use your flash drive on?
You can get an 8 gig Cruzer at walmart for $25 these days
Downside is it comes infected with U3.
You can still remove it though.
I got an 8GB Kingston DataTraveler for $20 CDN about 3 months ago at FutureShop. Just looks at their website and wait for a rebate.
is it fast? what apps do you have on it? and can you run MTB on it with over 200 messages in the local folders without lag? if so i might consider buying 1.
So... have you chosen one yet?
I found a tiny little 2G Toshiba flashdrive at an office supply big box store- it has a slick white body with metallic blue cap. It was then selling for peanuts- I think $7.99
The reason I mention it is because it is faster than the Roadrunner; noticeably better than my PNY, Verbatim, or Sandisk models. I think it was produced for Vista's ReadyBoost 'boon-dongle'.