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[whytemyke]

I'm thinking of getting a jump drive (usb stick). I was going to do it earlier today when I was at Staples, but they mark up the price sooo much. I really don't plan on transferring a ton of music or anything (though it'd be nice to take a cd or so with me to somebody else's, etc), but I figure since I'm a senior in college now, and plan on going to grad school, it might finally be a bit smarter for me to get one of those to store all my work on instead of constantly saving it on my hard drive and emailing to me, so i can get it in the computer lab. Or worse yet... using a floppy (comps in lab don't have CDRs... front-side USB ports, yes, but not CDR drives. grr).

Anyways, any recommendations? If I don't get a card with a USB cable in with the packaging, i'll have to buy one separate, since all my ports are in the back of my computer.

They a waste of time or are they nice to have around? I don't wanna spend too much, and I don't wanna get a gig one or something like that. But i'm thinking it might be a nice way to carry all the work I do around campus and such.

 

[Companion Cube]

I always see open box usb drives at Best Buy and Fry's. I saw one a while back that was originally $149 and I got it for $69. Not sure if jump drives are crappy compared to other ones, but mines just fine.

 

[ballstategamingking]

for me they are a waste of time, every computer i use has internet access so i just email files to myself.

Unless you are transferring huge files, i would just use gmail and mail everything

 

[Der Kommisar]

I'm thinking of getting a jump drive (usb stick). I was going to do it earlier today when I was at Staples, but they mark up the price sooo much. I really don't plan on transferring a ton of music or anything (though it'd be nice to take a cd or so with me to somebody else's, etc), but I figure since I'm a senior in college now, and plan on going to grad school, it might finally be a bit smarter for me to get one of those to store all my work on instead of constantly saving it on my hard drive and emailing to me, so i can get it in the computer lab. Or worse yet... using a floppy (comps in lab don't have CDRs... front-side USB ports, yes, but not CDR drives. grr).

Anyways, any recommendations? If I don't get a card with a USB cable in with the packaging, i'll have to buy one separate, since all my ports are in the back of my computer.

They a waste of time or are they nice to have around? I don't wanna spend too much, and I don't wanna get a gig one or something like that. But i'm thinking it might be a nice way to carry all the work I do around campus and such.

They are very useful if you have a lot of computer work you will be saving from school that you need access to easily. I have no specific brand recommendations but I'd say 256 megs is more than enough size-wise.

 

[whytemyke]

for me they are a waste of time, every computer i use has internet access so i just email files to myself.

Unless you are transferring huge files, i would just use gmail and mail everything

the problem with this is also that there are times I go home to work on stuff, and that's only a 56k connection. It sucks ass loading pdfs into emails on a 56k connection. it sucks a lot of ass.

 

[Mason]

Also useful for running programs you're not supposed to on public computers. For example, the computers at my school's library didn't have Firefox or AIM so you can install them on the jump drive and run them off of there.

 

[ballstategamingking]

it might be a good idea to get one, i have broadband everywhere i go, so its easier to just email it to myself, i got a 128mb one when they first came out, and have used it like three or four times. They can be handy, especially since the price is so low on them now

 

[Burger]

I thought this thread would be about spaceships.

 

[border]

Get a Nomad Muvo. Plays MP3s, and doubles as a flash drive (just don't get the Micro version).

Unless you are transferring huge files, i would just use gmail and mail everything

Gmail will not accept attachments bigger than 10-20MB...

 

[ballstategamingking]

yea but that is plenty for anything i have to send to myself, most of the time im only sending word docs, ppts, or pics

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

You need one, then. 256MB should be fine. Get a Sandisk Cruzer Mini, it's got its read/write LED at the back end, so when you're transferring data it looks like a beacon.....really cool...

 

[Slurpy]

Whoa, wait- there's people that don't have usb sticks yet?


Sheesh.

Don't know why anyone who even remotely uses a computer wouldn't have one. Internet isnt always guaranteed- but a usb slot is. You can get a 128 stick for like $10-$20, which will let you store all the documents you'll ever need.

 

[FightyF]

Yeah I'd have it. I'm not in Uni anymore, but if I had one, it would have been way more convenient. Sometimes getting my assignments from my email took forever because our Uni's 'net connection was ultra crappy.

As far as size goes, obviously the price/capacity ratio gets better the higher you go, but seriously you probably won't need anything higher than 128MB. You could probably even do well with a 32MB or 64MB one.

Heck if you lived in Alberta I'd give you one. I got a whole bunch...and though I never thought that having some high capacity ones would actually be useful...they were useful in transferring files from one computer to another. I backed up a lot of stuff on it and moved it over to another PC. It was faster than sending it over the LAN. 100Mbits/sec compared to 480...
\

 

[whytemyke]

anyone know of a good place to get some cheap ones?

 

[Der Kommisar]

Officemax.

Got a 256 meg for 25 dollars.

 

[BugCatcher]

If you can wait till the next sale holiday, you ought to be able to find some good deals. I picked up a $70 512M PNY Attache for $30 after mail-in rebate on black friday.

 

[aoi tsuki]

Officemax.

Got a 256 meg for 25 dollars.

Granted, i work at Staples, but $29 for a 512MB Sandisk Cruzer Micro (smallest flash drive in weeks/ever for the price) is a good deal for a B&M. We've had a different brand of 512MB flash drive at $29.99 for almost a month now.

Personally, i don't use flash drives. i don't have a persistent need to share a large amount of data >250MB on a regular basis, and when i do, it's easy enough to upload files to my host or burn a CDRW.

 

[Deku]

On the real low end, they are now selling 32 MB USB flash drives at really low prices, something like 9.99 CDN at Futureshop and those keychains sold out over one weekend.

Granted most files today are quite large but for low cost, no worry drives, there's the low end of the market with the cheap drives. It's certainly better than carrying a stack of floppies around and or trying to download an e-mailed attachment during peak net hours on campus and having the net server slow to a crawl.

When I was in uni and I usually upload a copy of the file to yahoo briefcase, have a hardcopy of disk and send myself an e-mail, in case any one of the three breaks down, I have a backup when I print the file before class started. Jump drives would be great to have instead of floppies and the student computers at my university are dell computers with the usb ports in the front of the pizza box.

 

[Dsal]

I have a gig jumpdrive on my keychain, and it's saved my ass several times (and other people's) already after just a few months. I used to think that since all my computers were connected to the net I'd never need one but I was wrong.

Places with only dialup access, computers whose net connections don't work, computers that have been partially disabled in some way, a client's laptop that isn't set up right to connect to your network at work, etc etc etc.... they all benefit from a jump drive where the net won't help.