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General discussion

searching for a USB flash drive

Mar 8, 2005 12:25AM PST

So this morning I did a search on yahoo for ?USB flash drive? and I?m just overwhelmed. With the exception of one company doing a paid survey, I?m bombarded with offers to buy anything that?ll plug into my USB port ? from a 16MB pen drive to an 8GB 2.0 USB drive. I bought my laptop back in 2001, so I probably don?t have USB 2.0. Could I still use a 2.0 drive though? I suppose I could spend a week, pouring over countless reviews and such, but I was hoping to hear back from a few of you who?ve already taken that journey, and see if you had any advice for me. Thanks for any input!

Discussion is locked

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All units I've used..
Mar 8, 2005 12:27AM PST

As well as my friends operate on USB 1.1 as well as 2.0. If you find any 1.1 devices out there, I expect them to be very cheap...

Bob

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I can't tell any difference
Mar 8, 2005 3:40AM PST

I have used SanDisk 128MB and another brand 64MB and don't see any difference. (Both purchased at Staples.) Like you, I use them in older computers that have slower ports. I am pretty sure the 2.0 flash drive will work on any USB, just not as fast.

A word of caution when using flash drives. I have one which I plugged in and unplugged dozens of times with no problem. Then one day for some reason I plugged in the flash drive and everything froze. OK, just unplug it and reboot, right? Wrong.

I rebooted a dozen times and could not log on because neither the mouse nor the keyboard (connected to the PS/2 ports) were working. Boot-up went normally but I could only get to the logon screen.

After a couple hours of troubleshooting I figured out that when I plugged in the flash drive it somehow disabled both PS/2 ports. Don't ask me why.

I eventually figured out that I had to go back into the BIOS and enable PnP. (Did my flash drive change the BIOS settings? I'll never know.) My advice: plug in your flash drive BEFORE you boot up. I know you're supposed to be able to plug them in "hot" but after this experience, I plug it in first and then boot up.

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Re: searching for a USB flash drive
May 25, 2005 5:19AM PDT

I've only used Sandisk USB flash drives (the 512MB and the 1GB).

Sandisk is good, have never had any problems, and they come with a built-in encryption program you can use (or not - your choice). Most, if not all, of the Sandisk USB drives are backward compatible with USB 1.0. Check the package to be sure - not all flash drives are backward compatible.

The estimated "life span" of a USB flash drive is 1,000,000 read/writes. Or depending on use, 2-10 years.

Brent