Flash Drives which one do you use?

Tony, I use an USB-powered hard drive from WD. The name escapes me right now, but its a laptop sized HD in a sleek black case and available in 80GB, 120GB and 160GB. I went for the 120GB drive as it was only a little more expensive than the 80GB. The 160GB was almost twice as much. Data transfer rates are around 35MB/s which I consider very good for a USB device.

I used to have a USB flash drive from SanDisk but the transfer speed was very slow and it only had 2GB capacity. It's a couple of years old and I don't know how much flash drives have improved since, but it's a non-issue to me.

Cheers.

 

I've got a couple of 4gig Kingston flash drives, one of which is used for Vista's ReadyBoot.cache. Work fine for me. For the big stuff, I use the WD My Book 500gig external USB 2 drives. You can usually find them on sale at Staples, Office Depot, etc. for under $200. They also have lower capacity drives for cheaper prices.

 

Tony

Given the choice, I wouldn't use a flash drives to transfer the pictures. You'd be better off opting for an external USB laptop drive - cheaper and much more capacity.

However, if you do insist on using flash drives, then they are all pretty much OK. My employer insists on Kingston for 2 reasons.

1 - the make memory so chances are they know what they're doing
2 - encryption - we have to use encryption for any off line storage

Sandisk make a good line - a lot of photographers swear by their CF/SD cards, their USB Flash Drives are very good too - the ruggedized freedom range have a useful lanyard on them.

As an aside, I was speaking to a colleague of mine who has stopped using DVD's for long term storage as they degrade over time. He now uses USB Pen drives and has a shelf loaded up with pen drives all numbered and catalogued.

 

SanDisk Cruzer.

password protection and many apps, both pay and free that can be ran directly from the pen drive on any computer.

check out the interactive tour

 

Why not use the CF cards you already have with a small USB reader?

 

quick question on usb / pen drives,. are there any that have a 'read-only' switch on the side / hidden so you can stop ppl writing to them once you've put data on it ?

Sil

PS, for flash drive I generally use a small usb card reader and a compact flash card

 

There are some Sil. I had one but don't remember the brand. The Sandisk has password protection options. I haven't fully explored them, but I'd bet they will do the same thing.

 

thanks, yep I have seen password / encrypted drives, what I was thinking of doing was offering images on a pen drive as well as burnt to disk but I'd like to make the pen drive read-only - at least to stop accidental over writing.

Sil

 

I got a lexar Lightning 4gb drive, works well with Vistas readyboost....

 

I'm a teacher, so I need encryption on the flash drive that I carry around. To this end, I've bought a 2G SanDisk Cruzer Titanium. I keep everything on it: tests, quizzes, notices, lesson plans, etc. It's basically crushproof...I can stomp on it - and I'm a fat guy. However, I also keep a Kingston 2G as a backup...just in case something tragic occurs. But I definitely agree that a flash/jump drive is the most effective way to store files. I'm even thinking of selling my Coolwalker.