Memory stick or External drive?

[witch]

My trusty memory stick appears to have died so I need a new one. First question is - what size to get (it was a 4Gb - probably a bit small) and where is the best place?

 

Or...do I go and get a nice big external drive?

 

I work in two schools so it is very useful to be able to move things from one to the other.

 

What do you all use?

[FN-GM]

I use one of these - Buffalo 250GB Portable Hard Drive TurboUSB - Ministation Turbo - Ebuyer

 

Excellent bit of kit does exactly what i need.

[LeMarchand]

As I can't currently afford larger capacity keys, I have 4:

 

3 with a modded PortableApps front end:

8GB "useful software" installation files (Flash, WMP11, TuxPaint etc etc)

4GB "portable apps" (mainly repair/diagnostic/recover utilities)

4GB "temporary documents" (used to transfer files from school to school)

 

The other is a bootable stick with UBCD4Win on it.

 

I tend to prefer sticks as they can fit around my neck and I carry them pretty much everywhere (ex- Boy Scout - "be prepared") though I'd quite like to get one larger capacity key. Last time I looked, 16GB was the "sweet spot".

 

Rather than buying an external drive, if that's what you'd prefer, haven't you got any scrappers with a suitably sized HDD that you could just buy an enclosure for? I carry a 30GB 2.5" drive in my case that I salvaged from a dead lappy and put in a £5 eBay enclosure.

[Dom_]

I have a 500GB lacie portable drive, which is perfect. Picked it up for around 70 quid (might have been from gizmodo?), fits nicely in my pocket and doesn't require power which is always good!

[LeMarchand]

I use one of these - Buffalo 250GB Portable Hard Drive TurboUSB - Ministation Turbo - Ebuyer

 

Excellent bit of kit does exactly what i need.

 

How sturdy are they? Got a couple on order to back up the "Public" areas of the server at one of my schools.

[mac_shinobi]

As I can't currently afford larger capacity keys, I have 4:

 

3 with a modded PortableApps front end:

8GB "useful software" installation files (Flash, WMP11, TuxPaint etc etc)

4GB "portable apps" (mainly repair/diagnostic/recover utilities)

4GB "temporary documents" (used to transfer files from school to school)

 

The other is a bootable stick with UBCD4Win on it.

 

I tend to prefer sticks as they can fit around my neck and I carry them pretty much everywhere (ex- Boy Scout - "be prepared") though I'd quite like to get one larger capacity key. Last time I looked, 16GB was the "sweet spot".

 

Rather than buying an external drive, if that's what you'd prefer, haven't you got any scrappers with a suitably sized HDD that you could just buy an enclosure for? I carry a 30GB 2.5" drive in my case that I salvaged from a dead lappy and put in a £5 eBay enclosure.

 

Think they do 64 gb memory sticks :

 

http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/CMFUSBHC-64GB.pdf

 

As to where to buy it maybe amazon, ebuyer, aria, misco, dabs or the likes ?

[Dom_]

I've never had any issues with the lacie one btw, and i regularly copy massive files. I also drop it quite a bit too :|

[FN-GM]

How sturdy are they? Got a couple on order to back up the "Public" areas of the server at one of my schools.

 

Very mine has had a few bumps and its still going. I have had mine for ages and never ever had a problem.

[elsiegee40]

I have 2 of these and love them... mostly because I can't lose the lid!

 

dabs.com - Imation 8GB SWIVEL FLASH USB (23415)

[LeMarchand]

Think they do 64 gb memory sticks

 

Out of my price range! Pretty sure that currently the best price/GB is 16GB for keys, 1TB for "desktop" drives and 500GB for "portable" drives.

 

I also drop it quite a bit too :|

 

I can dis-recommend Freecom, the ones I've seen have failed after even a small fall (though there is nothing obviously wrong inside - maybe "planned redundancy"? ).

 

Very mine has had a few bumps and its still going. I have had mine for ages and never ever had a problem.

 

Cheers, mind you I've just seen this: IOmega rugged. Wonder if the order has been placed yet?

[witch]

Hmmm...the bigger drives and sticks are probably a bit out of my price range at the moment.

But I shall file away the info for when I am richer.

 

As for 8GB sticks - I like the idea of a swivel but you do seem to pay a premium for them - I have seen Kingstons for £12 or so - are they a good make for sticks?

[RabbieBurns]

ive got a 16bit cruzer which i carry on me all the time at work, and got a 250gb wd passport i use for bigger things i know of in advance

 

both are great ;p

[jcollings]

We buy Kingston Data Travelers for use by staff and for sale to the students. I guess I have shifted around 400 or so over the last year and a bit and I don't think I've had 1 fail.

 

We usually get an excellent price from Bluepoint

 

Bluepoint

Edited March 3, 2009 by jcollings

[mac_shinobi]

an external WD or lacie drive would be the best bet that way you dont have to worry about it failing after a year where as ext hard drives ( in my experience ) seem to last longer.

[srochford]

7dayshop does excellent pricing for stuff like this - eg 8Gb drive for £9.99 or 16Gb for £16.50 (inc delivery)

[SimpleSi]

JFI(grannies) - All memory flash drives will fail one day - they have a limited read/write cycle life - its just a case of when - not if

 

And that's without bending them

 

I'm using 5x16GB (£75 at the time for the lot) at a school as a backup for office docs as the LEA remote backup solution is very, very expensive so it'll be an interesting exercise to see how long they last (as long as its > 3 months I think I've won financially

 

regards

 

Simon

[PiqueABoo]

its just a case of when

 

It's usually after a 100,000 writes isn't it? Not something that's especially easy to do with normal use especially since some of them move things about to compensate for areas being written to a lot.

[Jobos]

I’ve got a 1GB Lexar Sport. It was top of the range when I bought it and cost a whooping £42 It brings tears to my eyes when I see the prices now

[witch]

Well I managed to get the data off the duff stick by hanging on to it and sort of leaning with it - luckily there wasn't anything really important as I tend to use it to transfer things rather than keep things.

I think I will go for a 16Gb for now and save up for an external hard drive.

 

Ta all:)