Flash Drives: 16 gb on a budget

Caleb M.

Caleb M.

Joined
Dec 22, 2012
Messages
157
Just wanted to know if anyone could help me out. I'm trying to find a flash drive for school for under $15. I got into using Batch, VBS, and an assortment of different files and just wanted a way to keep them out of the docs on school file. Any help is appreciated. Also one last thing, if there is a recommendation for a micro usb flash drive that would be awesome.
 
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A micro USB what?

You can get 32gb flash drives for less than $20.00 these days. I just picked up a few a Walmart for my daughter and wife.
 
31pF9TH5SqL.jpg

Super Talent Pico-C
I have an old 8 gig version that I got many years ago and it still works fine, they're tiny, and waterproof.

And yes they have 16gig versions. Should be around 15$
 
I recommend looking at the data transfer speeds if you are going to be copying large files.
 
kingston datatraveler se9 16gb I got a new one off of ebay for just over ten dollars, It's great and pretty small
 
Kingston, corsair and verbatim are ones I've had good luck with. I have both USB2 and USB3 drives, and the USB3 ones weren't worth the extra couple of bucks. They are hit and miss as to if the comp will connect to them in highspeed mode or not. Get several, rotate them often, keep important files on many drives, and label your version numbers (Lessons hard learned in the world of corporate presentation services) more smaller drives are better, unless you need the high cap. Most of the drives are basically the same with differing cases, so get one that strikes your fancy, although the verbatim store-and-go series drives come with a password protection program, which can be nice.
 
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. Get several, rotate them often, keep important files on many drives, and label your version numbers (Lessons hard learned in the world of corporate presentation services) more smaller drives are better, unless you need the high cap.
Click to expand...

All "thumb drives" store your data in multi-level-cell, smallest-possible-geometey NAND flash. Smallest-geometry MLC NAND is the lowest cost-per-gigabyte and the physically-smallest solid-state memory technology available which is what manufacturers must use to survive in the intensely-cost-competitive USB drive market. For the consumer, the consequence is that these devices aren't very reliable. They're a handy way to carry data around, but not a reliable place to keep data long-term. Better brands such as HP and Kingston use better-quality memory parts and have better internal construction. They are worth their slightly higher price.
 
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I use Kingston DataTravelers. Never had one fail yet. A 16GB model will set you back about $12.
 
Just a heads up, look into formatting your thumb drive as NTFS right away. My 16 gb was FAT formatted, and I couldn't move large files around with it. Reformatted, moving a 12 gb wikipedia dumpfile was simple.
 
Yesterday, I bought a "thumb drive" for a class I'm taking.

I remembered back to my days working for a major mainframe computer center. We had some of the first IBM 3090 disk drives. 5Gigabytes. Can you believe it, gigabytes! Gigabytes! Five of them! Wow. I helped install them. Five gigabytes. And they only occupied 12 square feet of floor space each.

I remember marveling at those machines. Five gigabytes of data... and in only 12 square feet of floor space.

The other day, I bought eight gigabytes of storage. And it cost six dollars and was about maybe two cubic inches... maybe.
 
Gollnick said:
Yesterday, I bought a "thumb drive" for a class I'm taking.

I remembered back to my days working for a major mainframe computer center. We had some of the first IBM 3090 disk drives. 5Gigabytes. Can you believe it, gigabytes! Gigabytes! Five of them! Wow. I helped install them. Five gigabytes. And they only occupied 12 square feet of floor space each.

I remember marveling at those machines. Five gigabytes of data... and in only 12 square feet of floor space.

The other day, I bought eight gigabytes of storage. And it cost six dollars and was about maybe two cubic inches... maybe.
Click to expand...

I know, the size reduction is simply mind blowing.

I carry this 16gb DTSE9 on my keys, all of about an inch long. I'm sure by the time my kids are my age, they'll find it ludicrously large.

DTSE9-keychain.jpg


To the OP, the DTSE9 16GB can be had for under $15.
 
PH3380A.jpg


That's what 5Gbytes looked like 25 years ago. Actually, there is 25GBytes in that picture. Those units are about six feet tall. And it cost about $100,000 each in 1981 dollars.

We called the 3380s "Frigidaires" because they resembled large refrigerators. They replaced the 350MByte 3350s which we called "Maytags" because they resembled washing machines.

xm12.jpg
 
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Gollnick said:
Yesterday, I bought a "thumb drive" for a class I'm taking.

I remembered back to my days working for a major mainframe computer center. We had some of the first IBM 3090 disk drives. 5Gigabytes. Can you believe it, gigabytes! Gigabytes! Five of them! Wow. I helped install them. Five gigabytes. And they only occupied 12 square feet of floor space each.

I remember marveling at those machines. Five gigabytes of data... and in only 12 square feet of floor space.

The other day, I bought eight gigabytes of storage. And it cost six dollars and was about maybe two cubic inches... maybe.
Click to expand...
Heck, I remember buying a computer and being amazed at the 80 MEGAbyte hard-drive. It was a steal at only $2000.
 
BoxANT said:
Super Talent Pico-C . . . they're tiny
Click to expand...

I love these, and have several. I have two of them sticking out of my laptop right now as secondary and tertiary backups. And I carried one on a key ring for a year just to see how it would survive. It did great, and these are about as small as a flash drive can get.
 
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