OT: Great Titanium Flash Drive, Great Price

I posted a link to a Kingston flash drive the other day. After more
research, this appears to be the best

SanDisk 2 GB Cruzer Titanium

http://tinyurl.com/26jbnr

It's now $36.99 on Amazon. It's made out of Titanium, can withstand
2,000 pounds of pressure, which has been put to the test on a few
review sites.

It has a retraction mechanism so there is no cap to keep track of.

It has "U3" (which I am not familiar with), but that can be removed if
not wanted.

For use on a laptop, there are some USB "corner" flex adapters, so the
USB key is verticle, instead of horizontally sticking out, which may
result in damage to a laptop if the key is hit against something.

Here's a link to one:

http://tinyurl.com/26y3ue

FYI

 

Hi!

Thanks for the link. I've been thinking of buying a bigger one. Now, where's
my truck to help me test this theory?

For all their failings, floppy diskettes fit completely inside the drive.
You can't shear them off by walking around with the laptop. This and the
nearly universal compatability is why my Latitude D800 spends 90+% of its
time with the floppy drive in place.

William

 

Hi -- Google the name of the drive + "Review". There are at least 3
videos of trucks and cars running over the drive!

There is also a 4G version of the drive, but the 2G is the best value.
The value of the 4G would be more room to try the "U3" programs
(programs like Firefox and Open Office that can be run right from the
drive). That might be more useful for students, but I don't have a
need for it.

Very good point.

By the way, most people probably know this, but the two things I do
before buying a product are:

1. Go out to Amazon and read the user reviews.

2. Google the name of the product + "Review"

For #2, I look for any review but in particular CNET reviews. The
editor review isn't always the greatest but often there is a video of
the product being used by the reviewer, so it gives a good idea of
size, etc.

Also for # 2 there are also user reviews. I find the Amazon and other
user reviews do a good job of describing the product, and details over
time such as problems fixed by flash updates, etc., and if the product
is a year old, initially it may have had problems but the most current
reviews may indicate that they have been fixed.

 

P.S. Radio Shack sells them too.

 

A key point that you did not address (and to which I do not know the
answer) is whether or not this drive can be used as a "ReadyBoost" drive
with Vista.

 

I own several 2gb thumb drives and gave them to my daughters (I
actually needed bigger) and bought a 4gb micro cruzer thumb drive and
like it a lot. I got it on sale and I think I paid slightly less than
double of what price you mentioned about 2 or so months ago. I don't
leave home without it. It is also U3 but not recommended for truck
runovers (well actually I didn't test this but don't plan to either).
When I read about U3, a lot of people didn't seem to like it because
U3 took up space but I like the U3 security because I store passwords.
Most of those people who didn't like U3 tho, had 2gb thumb drives and
to me that's more of an issue (if any) for 2 vs 4 gb thumb drives.

I agree it's good to read reviews before buying anything. I usually
read either cnet's reviews or pricegrabber's reviews from users. I
also prefer to read owners reviews over the critics reviews.

 

According to this article the cruzer titanium is fast enough for
readyboost:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2017821,00.asp

 

Perhaps not mentioned because I think he and most don't buy it for
that reason. Personally I could care less and only bought the thumb
drive for portability. I don't see a need to go to Vista but should I
consider Vista it won't be before SP1 or later. I just read too many
opinions, none saying how great Vista was. At best, some say it's
nice but don't seem to say you should get rid of XP in favor of Vista.
And some even prefer XP over Vista so I conclude Vista can wait.

 

If you like user reviews, I suggest definitely looking at Amazon's.
That is the first place I go for user reviews.

CNET's already been mentioned, but if you are looking for specific
kinds of devices, such as a digital camera, there are really good ones
that go into a lot of detail -- dpreview and Steve's Digicams are two
examples. For notebooks, I could have the name wrong but there is a
site called notebookreview.com that does a better job than cnet.

A good starting point to learn about where the other review sites are,
which you will discover over time, is as mentioned before entering the
product name + "Review" into Google.

 

Hi, I'm glad you mentioned this. I had read about ReadyBoost a while
ago but had forgotten about it. With my laptop, I have two hard
drives, one with Vista and one with XP (which is my main one). I'll
try ReadyBoost on Vista just for fun and see if it makes a difference.

My main purpose of the flash drive though is simply to be able to have
my data available on my desktop or laptop rather than try to sync
files in some other way.

I just got the titanium drive today and it's great. I am tempted to
buy another at this price, but I'll use this and then get a 4G one
when that comes down in price.

 

Thanks Journey. I already know of some of the sites you mentioned
(and used them) but not all so I'll make a note of your post.

Thank you again Journey !