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Best USB Flash Drives

E

ebuc

macrumors regular
Original poster
With the number of USB Flash Drives increasing all the time, I thought it might be a good time to hear what the MacRumors community has to say about them. (I've been an avid MacRumors reader but a very uncommon poster to say the least)

Personally, I've been looking at the Apacer ht-203 Apacer HT-203 (newegg.com) It's a very appealing fast drive which comes in all the usual sizes (up to 4GB too).

So, what's been everyone's experience with USB Flash Drives? What's the best drive for one's money that also has decent read/write speeds? Thanks in advance for any input.
 
Before anyone contributes the obligatory "buy an iPod Shuffle" post, I want to mention that Shuffle data speeds are, at best, average. I see ~150MB/minute transfer. The Apacer drive mentioned above is twice as fast and nearly half as expensive.

I love the Shuffle, and it's nice for file transfer, but it isn't the best value if data transfer is your main concern.
 
i'm very fond of my pqi memory stick. there is actually an adaptor that the usb stick plugs into to make it fit in usb plug. the actual black memory stick is about as thick as a quater, and just slightly longer than 1.5 inches.

comes in 256, 512, and 1gb sizes.

comes with a wallet holder too, slick as hell if you ask me. 😎
 
jsw said:
Before anyone contributes the obligatory "buy an iPod Shuffle" post, I want to mention that Shuffle data speeds are, at best, average. I see ~150MB/minute transfer. The Apacer drive mentioned above is twice as fast and nearly half as expensive.

I love the Shuffle, and it's nice for file transfer, but it isn't the best value if data transfer is your main concern.
Click to expand...


Newegg mentions that the Apacer drive writes at 14 MB/second which equates to 840 MB/minute... Woah.. that's quite a bit faster than the shuffle.

I have a Cruzer mini which seems pretty fast, although I've never measured it.
 
jxyama said:
cheaper the better in my book...

they all pretty much work the same way...
Click to expand...
Um... No. The speed of the drive can vary greatly from model to model. The iPod shuffle can only transfer about 150 mb/s but the first one on newegg can transfer at 840 mb/s. Also you don't want some cheap one that will break the first time you drop it 2 feet onto a carped floor.
 
thecow said:
Um... No. The speed of the drive can vary greatly from model to model. The iPod shuffle can only transfer about 150 mb/s but the first one on newegg can transfer at 840 mb/s. Also you don't want some cheap one that will break the first time you drop it 2 feet onto a carped floor.
Click to expand...

that's one way to look at it...

the other way is to say, well, 150 mb/s or 840 mb/s, you are talking about saving time on the order of a minute, if that, for regular uses. to me, that is not worth paying extra money. i just look at reasonable capacity (128+ MB) ones and go for the cheapest and treat them basically as disposable. if i drop it and it breaks, i just buy another $20 one.
 
thecow said:
Um... No. The speed of the drive can vary greatly from model to model. The iPod shuffle can only transfer about 150 mb/s but the first one on newegg can transfer at 840 mb/s. Also you don't want some cheap one that will break the first time you drop it 2 feet onto a carped floor.
Click to expand...

How can you transfer at 840mb/s when the USB2 spec calls for a max of 400mb/s?
 
I had a really cheap drive from some company I'd never heard of - then I went out and bought a Kingston Datatraveler II and it plows through data like I've never seen - I was very impressed. Just my two cents.
 
I bought a Sandisk Cruzer Micro a few weeks ago. Got 256MB for $30 at CompUSA. I'm sure I could've gotten it cheaper seeing some of the post talking about 1GB for $70 but it was one of those impulsive buys. You know how it goes.. 😀

Anyway, the physical size of the drive is what sold me. Its about 0.5cm thick and about as long as a rgular sony memory stick. The thing I also paid attention to was that I wanted it to be small enough that I could still have something else plugged into the USB port next to it. Some of the USB drive are so wide that the block your second port. That's no good!
Transfer speeds seemed fine when I tried it on my dad's pc with USB 2.0. But seeing as my powerbook only has USB 1.1 that's not really an issue at the moment!

Oh and one other cool thing: THe back lights up bright blue when its plugged in and flashes with disk use! 😎
 
thecow said:
Um... No. The speed of the drive can vary greatly from model to model. The iPod shuffle can only transfer about 150 mb/s but the first one on newegg can transfer at 840 mb/s. Also you don't want some cheap one that will break the first time you drop it 2 feet onto a carped floor.
Click to expand...
iPod Shuffle is 150MB/min. Presumably you mean 840MB/min as well, which would be well within USB2 specs.
 
I'm pretty sure Corsair's USB memory drive has the fastest data transmission speeds, but I'd really buy an iPod Shuffle if I were you.
 
Thanks for the ideas (people seem to like the sandisk drives a lot, though I've heard the Micro is very slow). And if anyone's actually used the Apacer HT-203 drive, I'd love to hear from you. Anybody ever even heard of this company or seen any of their products?

And the more I think about it, the more the iPod Shuffle seems to be a good idea. You pay about a 50 dollar premium for the Apple brand and the ability to play mp3's. I've already got an iPod, but a flash drive and a little mp3 player with 8x or 16x as much space as my original Rio 500 (which was quite an MP3 player a few years ago). Decisions, decisions...
 
3Memos said:
How can you transfer at 840mb/s when the USB2 spec calls for a max of 400mb/s?
Click to expand...
It's a typo. 480 Mb/sec is the limit for USB2. Note Mb designates megabits, not megabytes (MB). To convert bits to bytes, divide by 8. Therefore, 480 Mb/sec is equivalent to 60 MB/sec. However, USB is a burst transfer technology - this means it cannot sustain its maximum rate for long periods. Real-world transfer rates will vary.
 
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