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Posted: 4/28/2011 1:13:41 PM EDT
Lots to choose from with varying capacities - 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, etc: HP PNY Lexar Toshiba Sandisk ... and so on I realize that in many ways they're all probably quite similar, but am wondering if people have had particularly good (or bad) luck with one brand versus the others ... |
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I have a 32 GB Sandisk.
People complain on the net that it's slow, but other than that, it works great for me. I haven't tried to upload/dl an entire hard drive yet though. |
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I've had excellent results from Patriot USB drives.
Matter of fact, because I loved the 8gb ones I had, I just purchased a 16gb and a 32gb of the Patriot Xporter XT Boost models. On amazon there is a $10 rebate form, eligible for 1 per product per household (buy one of each, get $20 back). I put 'em to the test the other day and they are lightning fast for a USB drive. They're also made of rubber making them very durable and unless you're diving with the thing in your hand, waterproof to a degree. Love 'em. $57 for the 32gb ($47 after rebate) $25 for the 16gb ($15 after rebate) ETA: They also have a *lifetime* warranty |
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Quoted: I've had excellent results from Patriot USB drives. Matter of fact, because I loved the 8gb ones I had, I just purchased a 16gb and a 32gb of the Patriot Xporter XT Boost models. On amazon there is a $10 rebate form, eligible for 1 per product per household (buy one of each, get $20 back). I put 'em to the test the other day and they are lightning fast for a USB drive. They're also made of rubber making them very durable and unless you're diving with the thing in your hand, waterproof to a degree. Love 'em. $57 for the 32gb ($47 after rebate) $25 for the 16gb ($15 after rebate) ETA: They also have a *lifetime* warranty What he said |
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I've had excellent results from Patriot USB drives. Matter of fact, because I loved the 8gb ones I had, I just purchased a 16gb and a 32gb of the Patriot Xporter XT Boost models. On amazon there is a $10 rebate form, eligible for 1 per product per household (buy one of each, get $20 back). I put 'em to the test the other day and they are lightning fast for a USB drive. They're also made of rubber making them very durable and unless you're diving with the thing in your hand, waterproof to a degree. Love 'em. $57 for the 32gb ($47 after rebate) $25 for the 16gb ($15 after rebate) ETA: They also have a *lifetime* warranty What he said Excellent; thanks for the tip I hadn't heard of these before. I only need 8 GB of capacity, but I'm not finding any rebate offers ... not a big deal though as they seem to be reasonably priced. Here's what I've found: Amazon $15.93 Newegg $15.99 Next question - - I have no experience ordering with Newegg ... Any thoughts on ordering from them vs. Amazon |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I've had excellent results from Patriot USB drives. Matter of fact, because I loved the 8gb ones I had, I just purchased a 16gb and a 32gb of the Patriot Xporter XT Boost models. On amazon there is a $10 rebate form, eligible for 1 per product per household (buy one of each, get $20 back). I put 'em to the test the other day and they are lightning fast for a USB drive. They're also made of rubber making them very durable and unless you're diving with the thing in your hand, waterproof to a degree. Love 'em. $57 for the 32gb ($47 after rebate) $25 for the 16gb ($15 after rebate) ETA: They also have a *lifetime* warranty What he said Excellent; thanks for the tip I hadn't heard of these before. I only need 8 GB of capacity, but I'm not finding any rebate offers ... not a big deal though as they seem to be reasonably priced. Here's what I've found: Amazon $15.93 Newegg $15.99 Next question - - I have no experience ordering with Newegg ... Any thoughts on ordering from them vs. Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Xporter-Boost-Flash-PEF8GUSB/dp/B000VE2RP6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1304035278&sr=8-2 |
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<snip> http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Xporter-Boost-Flash-PEF8GUSB/dp/B000VE2RP6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1304035278&sr=8-2 Yep ... I think that's the same one that I linked to in the post above your last. Thanks. |
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I have a couple 8gb san disk, and I have a microcenter 16 gb that works great. the 16 gb was cheap too. Like 12 bucks
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I have had good luck with both Sandisk and Toshiba. I am hard on my flash drives at work and they get used every day, in various computers and seem to stand up the best.
Used to use Patriots because they are low cost and I could get em in bulk, maybe I got a bad batch but had had several take a shit on me. J- |
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I have mostly sandisk and pny. Whatever is cheapest. PNY and other brands than sandisk get bonus points for not having the U3 shit on them.
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A tremendous number of those are the same underlying chipset/components with a different brand name slapped on.
I view them as disposable commodity items. Run whatever was in the bargain bin at the checkout line of your local MicroCenter or Fry's. Better yet go to some shitty sales expo or conference they'll be giving them away. |
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The one that someone gives me for free?
I prefer Transcend and OCZ though. |
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Whatever is cheapest.
I have about a dozen thumb drives and probably 4 or 5 different brands. They all have functioned just fine. |
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Whatever is cheapest. I have about a dozen thumb drives and probably 4 or 5 different brands. They all have functioned just fine. |
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whatever i get for free or find online cheap enough to meet free shipping requirements when i'm ordering something else.
the most expensive flash drive i bought was a Corsair 8GB GT when they first came out... it was a piece of crap... tons of r/w errors... sent it back... the replacement lasted a couple months before it just would just corrupt itself randomly... third time's a charm? wrong, the usb connector broke off... i have a dell 16mb, yes 16mb, from 2004? that still has data on it from 7 years ago and works great. i have a sandisk and a couple kingstons, and a freebie micro drive i got at the RSA conference (another security company was letting people scan them with their antivirus/malware tools, and then formatting them - it was a total coincidence, yet a clever way to show off their product) |
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I have mostly sandisk and pny. Whatever is cheapest. PNY and other brands than sandisk get bonus points for not having the U3 shit on them. What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? |
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So far the only two I own are no-name freebies. Neither has had any kind of failure, but I do keep them backed up.
Wait - one's an Imation and the other is a Dane-Elec. The Imation is a 2GB that I've had for several years. The Dane-Elec is an 8GB that I got last fall. |
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Iron Key. If you lose it, no one can access your data. They are pricie, but are worth. I have one I have carried on my key chain for 3 years now and it still is going strong. The wife has ran it through the washing machine a couple of times.
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. |
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I have mostly sandisk and pny. Whatever is cheapest. PNY and other brands than sandisk get bonus points for not having the U3 shit on them. Not to high-jack, but isn't there some small program that will keep the U3 and other crap from opening/running? Thought I read about something like that a while back. |
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I've used a bunch of different USB drives over the years. I've never had a single problem with any of them. I had an SD card go bad once, but that was after using it 10 trillion times. At least.
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Whatevers the most highly reviewed on Newegg in a size I want at a price I want. Seriously that is how I decide.
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I've had some that won't give you the opportunity to format before they open and run. Solution? |
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I've had some that won't give you the opportunity to format before they open and run. Solution? yes, disable autorun. it requires a few simple registry tweaks but it will block the OS from searching the / drive for "autorun.inf" and executing whatever commands are in there... disabling "autoplay" is a different item, but you should probably disable that too... just google it for your windows version |
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U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I've had some that won't give you the opportunity to format before they open and run. Solution? I haven't seen that. But U3 specifically also has a "Uninstall" option in the software. So you can get rid of it from the software itself. Once you do that then you should be able to delete anything on the drive and reformat. |
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yes, disable autorun. it requires a few simple registry tweaks but it will block the OS from searching the / drive for "autorun.inf" and executing whatever commands are in there... disabling "autoplay" is a different item, but you should probably disable that too... just google it for your windows version I think MS has pushed out updates for XP, Vista, and 7 that disables autorun from USB permanently (due to Stuxnet.) |
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If it's not already apparent that I know next to nothing about these little things, it will be now ... Quoted:
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I was wondering if reformatting was possible with these things ... so ... how do you go about that ? |
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If it's not already apparent that I know next to nothing about these little things, it will be now ... Quoted:
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I was wondering if reformatting was possible with these things ... so ... how do you go about that ? Insert the drive. Open "computer. Right click the drive. Click on "format" in the drop down. |
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If it's not already apparent that I know next to nothing about these little things, it will be now ... Quoted:
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I was wondering if reformatting was possible with these things ... so ... how do you go about that ? like you would any other drive, the easiest being, double click on "my computer", right click on the flash drive, and select "format" |
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Insert the drive. Open "computer. Right click the drive. Click on "format" in the drop down. Just make sure you format the correct drive. |
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yes, disable autorun. it requires a few simple registry tweaks but it will block the OS from searching the / drive for "autorun.inf" and executing whatever commands are in there... disabling "autoplay" is a different item, but you should probably disable that too... just google it for your windows version I think MS has pushed out updates for XP, Vista, and 7 that disables autorun from USB permanently (due to Stuxnet.) I'll check that out. |
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Insert the drive. Open "computer. Right click the drive. Click on "format" in the drop down. Just make sure you format the correct drive. Definitely!!!!! |
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yes, disable autorun. it requires a few simple registry tweaks but it will block the OS from searching the / drive for "autorun.inf" and executing whatever commands are in there... disabling "autoplay" is a different item, but you should probably disable that too... just google it for your windows version I think MS has pushed out updates for XP, Vista, and 7 that disables autorun from USB permanently (due to Stuxnet.) interesting, i guess they just do the "autoplay" now and give you the option to choose things like "open with media player, open with windows explorer, run xyz" etc? do you have the hotfix # for that? |
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interesting, i guess they just do the "autoplay" now and give you the option to choose things like "open with media player, open with windows explorer, run xyz" etc? do you have the hotfix # for that? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971029 |
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interesting, i guess they just do the "autoplay" now and give you the option to choose things like "open with media player, open with windows explorer, run xyz" etc? do you have the hotfix # for that? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971029 thanks |
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like you would any other drive, the easiest being, double click on "my computer", right click on the flash drive, and select "format" Quoted:
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Insert the drive. Open "computer. Right click the drive. Click on "format" in the drop down. Just make sure you format the correct drive. Definitely!!!!! |
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If it's not already apparent that I know next to nothing about these little things, it will be now ... Quoted:
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What's the U3 stuff and why is it bad ? U3 is some software that SanDisk loads onto the flash drive. I think it includes some portable apps (openoffice, keepass, firefox) but I am not certain. I unload it easily by reformatting the drive when I first plug the drive in. I was wondering if reformatting was possible with these things ... so ... how do you go about that ? like you would any other drive, the easiest being, double click on "my computer", right click on the flash drive, and select "format" Formatting them does not get rid of U3. You need to grab the U3 uninstaller from sandisk. http://mp3support.sandisk.com/downloads/launchpadremoval.exe |
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OCZ, I've had issued with other brands losing data randomly and moving my files and shit.
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Quoted: OCZ, I've had issued with other brands losing data randomly and moving my files and shit. x2. I use the OCz Diesel, got at least ten of the 8GB. Half of them hold various linux distros. |
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