flash memory
Posted by: pca
flash memory - 01/03/2006 16:06
OK, one for the UK people. Where is the cheapest place I can get decent quality 2-4GB flash memory cards, and 1GB USB memory sticks? Or, perhaps I should say, where is the cheapest reputable place that will actually deliver the things after taking my money?
pca
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 01/03/2006 17:04
Here in the US flash memory fell through the floor two weeks ago or so. If you havn't had the coresponding price drops, it may be worth it to order it from over here.
A slow san disk 4GB CF cards are going for
$150 with a $20 rebate. Fast ones are about
$175. You can get a
1GB USB drive for $33 with $10 in rebates.
Posted by: adavidw
Re: flash memory - 02/03/2006 03:14
Any recommendation for a good fast SD card, around 1GB? I can find all sorts of prices, I just don't know which cards are faster than which others.
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 02/03/2006 03:37
Robgalbraith.com has SD cards in their database if you check out a camera that takes SD cards, like the Canon 1D mkII.
Matthew
Amazon.co.uk have a 1GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro for about £30. Its TINY.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 01:21
Multiwave in California has the Cruzer Micro for
$49 Too bad I cheaped out and got some 512's, the prices are droping daily.
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 01:27
What I find neat about the micros is that you can take a sharp knife or razor and slice the gummy blob off from around the metal case. That slims them down and they fit nicely on the key chain.
Can't figure why nobody has sold them like that to start.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 01:37
On the latest few Micro's I bought (for work), the soft plaster outer covering slips right off. That leaves the entire drive the thickness of the USB connector. They even come with two alternate color sleeves/caps, which are a great replacement if you loose the cap or scratch it.
The older Micro's (no, not possessive, pluralization of a brand name) had the sleeve fixed in place, I think. I'd check, but my co-workers have them now.
And CURSE their engineering department for having such a well lit activity light on the end. If only I had that knowledge.
Posted by: msaeger
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 01:38
This is the best one I have seen to go on a key chain. I'll probably get one soon since I finally lost my 256M key.
Posted by: gbeer
The nude Cruzer Micro - 03/03/2006 02:43
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 02:49
Quote:
And CURSE their engineering department for having such a well lit activity light on the end. If only I had that knowledge.
Sounds like there's an interesting story here.
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 03:39
Quote:
Sounds like there's an interesting story here.
See here.
Matthew
Posted by: Robotic
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 04:46
PQI has a 'housing-less' USB drive that is thin enough to fit unnoticed in your wallet.
Here's a page from a thumb drive mega review from October:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2549&p=17I was always enamored of the
OCZ Rally, but I'm still waiting for the prices to hit bottom.
I'm just a cheep
b@stard like that.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 12:48
Quote:
Multiwave in California has the Cruzer Micro for $49 Too bad I cheaped out and got some 512's, the prices are droping daily.
These Sandisk drives are great. I have a Cruzer mini and I'm very impressed with it. I'm also very impressed with the activity light, as it helps to know when it's okay to take the drive out. I went all out with mine and sprung for the 4GB version, and now I have all my common program installation files on there, and that's only taking up about 300MB.
Does anyone know where I can find a list of good standalone applications? Ones that don't have to be installed, but just run out of a folder? In case anyone else wants some suggestions, here's what I have so far:
- Audacity
- Process Explorer
- Scanner
- Media Player Classic
- mplayer
- PocketDivXEncoder
- an old version of Paint Shop Pro (5) [this one's my favorite - I love having PSP anywhere I go]
Any other suggestions? I read somewhere that Firefox can run standalone, but that might have been a much older version. I have the install file on there, but it would be nice to be able to just run it off the thumb drive.
Posted by: Robotic
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 14:36
Quote:
Any other suggestions?
This article over at Slashdot a few weeks ago has several good tidbits regarding 'portable applications'. Take a look-see.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 15:36
There was one particularly good comment in there with a big list of programs. Thanks! I also followed that site to
this site, however, and that is a great page. Thanks for the link!
Posted by: Robotic
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 15:48
Yup- that was the biggest nugget.
You're welcome!
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 17:11
Quote:
Micro's (no, not possessive, pluralization of a brand name)
Yeah, that's not how that works.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 17:18
I have two suggestions for keychain ones: the
"Geek Squad" (ugh) one, which is cool because of the integrated cap, and the
Swiss Army Knife one.
I also have the
PQI Intelligent Stick one, which works really well, and is quite small, but I find that the wallet case is less than spectacular. It's a little too thick and is made of fairly brittle plastic. Mine still holds onto the thing only because I have it pointed down into the card slot. That said, the USB key itself is undamaged.
Posted by: Shonky
Re: flash memory - 03/03/2006 22:09
I'm about to purchase a 4GB MMC card for my Nokia 6230 so I can use it like a cheap iPod nano for my law-enforced 2 hour commute to work. Can also use it in my digital camera then. US$142 shipped to Australia on ebay (Flashman852 I think is the seller). They just dropped about US$30 in price in the past couple of days.
But then some people are against Paypal/Ebay. Personally I've haven't had any major problems but I'm also fairly cautious. As long as you are patient and don't get into bidding wars I find ebay OK. The above mentioned ones are Buy-It-Now anyway.
Posted by: robricc
Re: flash memory - 04/03/2006 16:42
Wow, flash really has fallen through the floor!
$99 for 4GB USB is crazy. I carry around a
4GB microdrive-based unit which is a little bulky. Maybe it's time to downsize...
Posted by: andy
Re: flash memory - 04/03/2006 19:30
4GB USB2 Flash drives (including that one) are still over twice that in the UK.
Posted by: Roger
Re: flash memory - 06/03/2006 12:43
Quote:
I have two suggestions for keychain ones
I've got some no-name OEM keychain USB stick. It just says "Super*Flash" on it. It's 1Gb, USB 2.0, and it's exceptionally small, because they've dispensed with the metal shield around the USB contacts. You just wedge it in the USB port and hope it stays there.
It's this one, in fact.
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 07/03/2006 00:35
I've looked at those, without the shield, models. It just strikes me that the contacts are subject to too much wear, tear and contamination.
No doubt it's an entirely irrational opinion.
Posted by: HOT2N
Re: flash memory - 10/03/2006 07:23
I also have the PQI Intelligent Stick one so far I've been very happy with it
My only gripes are
I wish they made a higher capacity version, and it had a loop for key chain atachment.
Posted by: mlord
Re: flash memory - 10/03/2006 13:07
2GB Apacer stick, CDN$132. That's what I just purchased locally here yesterday.
26-30MByte/sec read speed, about 35% of that when writing. FAST. Faster than the hard drives in my Empegs, but not quite as swift as the 100GB spinner unit in my Dell i9300.
So for fun, I installed Knoppix-4.02 onto the flash stick. Faster than a CDROM, but not by much. WTF?
Dug around briefly, and discovered that Knoppix screwed up the USB drivers -- the EHCI (USB2 hispeed) driver was not being loaded at boot time. After a brief amount of digging thought the minirt.gz (boot-time ramdisk file), I found the culprit: a simple typo. Fixed that, and now it starts real quick like -- boots up into OpenOffice.org much more quickly (like 10X-15X more quickly) than the native Kubuntu hard disk install on the same machine.
Cool.
Cheers
Posted by: loren
Re: flash memory - 10/03/2006 18:04
16GB thumb drive announced today... man I wish they'd hurry it up with the capacity wars. I can't wait to slap 80gb of flash in my empeg. =]
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 10/03/2006 20:09
Quote:
I can't wait to slap 80gb of flash in my empeg. =]
I had the exact same thought when I read that exact article. I've been looking forward to it for a while now, but it's certainly seeming closer.
Matthew
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 02:12
Quote:
16GB thumb drive announced today... man I wish they'd hurry it up with the capacity wars. I can't wait to slap 80gb of flash in my empeg. =]
I gotta ask, How do you connect a usb drive to an Empeg? Is there some kind of ide-usb bridge available?
Edit: It was a fulish question! Google sorted me out. Just buy a 2.5" form ide flash drive.
This one is 64G in size.
http://www.memtech.com/memtech_2.5-inch-...ate-flash-drive
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 03:40
That'd be an option, but CF cards speak IDE, all you need is a simple adapter.
Hmm,
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 16:38
Quote:
Multiwave in California has the Cruzer Micro for $49 Too bad I cheaped out and got some 512's, the prices are droping daily.
I bought a pair of these. I noticed one thing that is different between them and the 512 micro curser I already had. The 512 reports that it is bootable, while the 1GB items do not.
Might be something I did to the 512 and forgot about.
If only this laptop would actually boot from a usb port.
Posted by: Robotic
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 17:25
Quote:
Edit: It was a fulish question! Google sorted me out. Just buy a 2.5" form ide flash drive.
Wow! Exactly!
Without the physical limitations of a spinning disk, the Empeg would have a whole new lease on life.
Beyond allowing multiple orientation mounting, the drive(s) could be left in read/write all the time. This would make a few dreamt-of options a possibility, I imagine.
Would RAM become less of an issue because a swap partition would be available?
Posted by: tman
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 17:35
Quote:
Would RAM become less of an issue because a swap partition would be available?
No. You shouldn't use flash as swap because you'll wear it out very quickly.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 19:20
CF interface in empeg under a plexiglass lid. I vote this as one the "best mods evar". Picture attached incase the site goes down.
Posted by: sein
Re: flash memory - 12/03/2006 19:56
That is amazing! What a cool idea.
Posted by: gbeer
Re: flash memory - 30/03/2006 02:10
Quote:
16GB thumb drive announced today... man I wish they'd hurry it up with the capacity wars. I can't wait to slap 80gb of flash in my empeg. =]
On Engadget a a 64GB thumb drive for $5k.
Posted by: lectric
Re: flash memory - 30/03/2006 02:50
Quote:
You shouldn't use flash as swap because you'll wear it out very quickly.
I wasn't aware this was a big deal... My ipaq uses flash for swap. Doesn't it?
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: flash memory - 30/03/2006 03:16
Doubtfull. It probably using normal volatile ram of some sort, which is why the battery dieing causes it to forget everything it ever knew. This always seemed like an amazingly bad design decision and is probably based on flash prices at least 8 years ago. Many current PocketPC's include a flash disk, but this usualy shows up seperatly from the main "drive" which is ROM copied into memory. Another side effect of this is that the thing can never turn itself off, so the batteries are empty (and it has forgotten everything it ever knew) in just a few weeks no matter what.
This could have all changed with the most recent Wince revision, I havn't been keeping up.
Matthew
