[PLUG] Flash Drive Recommendations?

Dale Snell ddsnell at frontier.com
Mon Aug 19 17:14:15 UTC 2013


On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:37:58 -0700
Dick Steffens <dick at dicksteffens.com> wrote:

> Any horror stories related to flash drives?
> 
> Those $20 Lenovo machines Kieth mentioned that are available at Eco 
> Binary don't have an optical media drive. So installing an OS would need 
> to be done with a flash drive (or some other way, but that's the one I'm 
> aware of).
> 
> I'm looking at a SanDisk Cruzer 32 GB USB Flash Drive from Amazon.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Flash-Drive-SDCZ36-032G-AFFP/dp/B007JR532M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1376928931&sr=8-3&keywords=flash+drive
> 
> There are two reviews that are somewhat contradictory. The first one 
> says the thing is actually a 64 GB and he's happy with it.
> 
> The second one says the transfer rate is slow, and it hangs on him.
> 
> Any experience with these things (USB flash drives in general) for 
> installing an OS?

The only thumb drive I've ever had go bad on me was an 8GB PNY unit.
OTOH, I have a couple of other PNYs that work just fine.  One of them
is the very first thumb drive I bought, with a whopping 256MB
capacity.  :-)  Most of my thumb drives Kensingtons, and I've never 
had any trouble with them.  I don't have any SanDisk thumb drives, so 
I can't say from personal experience how well they work.  I do have a
couple of microHD cards from them, and they work well enough.

I did just buy a new PNY 8GB drive (it was at the food checkout stand
at Fred Meyer :-) ), and I noticed something troubling -- the
connector shell is plastic, not metal.  Since the shell is both ground
and shielding, I don't consider that a good thing.  I'm sure it makes
the drive less expensive, but still.  The annoying thing is that you
can't tell this at the store.  The drive has a sleeve that slides up
to protect the connector when the drive's not in use, which of course
hides it.  I shant be buying any more of those.

I looked at the Amazon web page, and the reviews seem to be for the
entire line of that style of SanDisk thumb drives.  While most of the
reviews (and there are over 2000 of them) are positive, most of
them do note that the drive is slow.  It looks to me as if that whole
series of drives is slow.  From what I know of SanDisk's reputation,
it will probably work well.  Just very slowly.

I've never tried to use a thumb drive as an installation drive.  I
have used one as a "live OS" drive, and it worked nicely, so I assume
(HAH!) that it would work as an installation drive.  Since I have a
number of 2.5" hard drives, and the USB cases to put them in, I'd just
use one of them as an installation drive.  Or for that matter, I have
a portable USB DVD unit, if I really needed a DVD reader.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on mag tape somewhere."
    -- Peter da Silva



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