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View Full Version : 32GB USB Flash/Thumb Drive!



Old Pink
October 22nd, 2006, 06:52 PM
A Closer Look
http://images.tigerdirect.com/itemDetails/I46-2056/I46-2056-callout.jpg

Features
Store up to 32GB!
Rugged and lightweight design, weighs only 18 g
High Strength Aluminum housing
High speed USB2.0 (480mbps)
Uses Top Grade Flash Memory, 10 year data retention
Backwards compatible with USB1.1 ports
Plug and Play!
Includes USB Extension Cable
Works with Windows and Macintosh, and Linuxhttp://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2074957&CatId=0

(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2074957&CatId=0)How's that for an extremely portable ubuntu install? :eek:

You could install it on that, and boot it wherever you are, whatever system you happen to be using.

Looks pretty cool, although it should be for $1499.99... :neutral:

chaosgeisterchen
October 22nd, 2006, 06:57 PM
I will wait for those devices to become available for about 150 euros.

Lord Illidan
October 22nd, 2006, 07:02 PM
same here. my friend bought a 160 gig Cool Drive for something like 100 bucks (conversion from maltese lira to US $ not exact)..he loves it..bulky and needs power source but very handy.

jdq997
October 22nd, 2006, 07:04 PM
This is awesome -- and the amazing thing is, I expect this to be affordable very soon.

My dream device would be a cell phone that has around this much storage space, and also has a smart phone/PDA interface that can interact with my files, media, email and PIM. Then when I get home, or go to a computer lab, or go to the office I can plug it into a port USB and boot a full fledged desktop OS that accesses all of the same data. I don't think this kind of capability is far way -- the technology is mostly there to accomplish it now.
It would be a true all in one device in the palm of your hand.

- Jason

chaosgeisterchen
October 22nd, 2006, 07:07 PM
I am waiting for the next generation harddrives based upon flash memory pendrives, they are in development right now and will be available for notebooks in 2008 as I read recently. They will be more expensive than regular hard drives but they will provide tremendous access latency times (way less than 1ms) and seem to be much faster concerning data tranfserring too (now they are at 40 mb/s but it's only the beginning).

I wait for 200 gig drives of this kind...

Old Pink
October 23rd, 2006, 12:20 AM
I will wait for those devices to become available for about 150 euros.

That's around £100.71 ..... :rolleyes:

Yeah, I'd buy one for that. Maybe £75....

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 12:20 AM
yeah, those drives will be awesome. The only problem right now, i think, is how big they can make them. Last I heard, 32GB was indeed the largest. Didnt know they'd made them into thumbdrives as well. neat.

The best part about hard drives like that; eliminate the last "moving-parts" mechanism of a computer. Seems like data loss will be reduced by, oh, 99%. and the speed, well, that'll be just amazing. It's weird to think that soon, we might have onboard hard drives.

Lord Illidan
October 23rd, 2006, 03:49 PM
yeah, those drives will be awesome. The only problem right now, i think, is how big they can make them. Last I heard, 32GB was indeed the largest. Didnt know they'd made them into thumbdrives as well. neat.

The best part about hard drives like that; eliminate the last "moving-parts" mechanism of a computer. Seems like data loss will be reduced by, oh, 99%. and the speed, well, that'll be just amazing. It's weird to think that soon, we might have onboard hard drives.

yeah, very soon. It's also a boon because flash drives take less power and give out less heat.

hotbrainz
October 23rd, 2006, 03:57 PM
Research is being done on the new concept of - Spintronics. It is still academic. It is works out then size will not be the issue at all as technology will allow any size as long as you can afford it.

insane_alien
October 23rd, 2006, 04:22 PM
http://www.kanguru.com/flashdrive_max.html <from the same manufacturer 64GB !

DoctorMO
October 23rd, 2006, 05:01 PM
I think 32GB is the limit on the FAT32 system (although I thought that was 4GB *shrug*)

I'm sure if you formated it as ext3 it'd be fine in terra bytes.

Lord Illidan
October 23rd, 2006, 05:11 PM
4 gigabytes is the maximum file size you can put on FAT 32..in otherwords, not so good for movies. Otherwise, a FAT 32 partition can be up to 2TB.

Windows XP/2003, however, does not allow you to partition FAT32 partitions higher than 32 Gigabytes, understandable, as NTFS would work better. FAT 32 needs to be defragmented more, remember.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=38803&DisplayTab=Article

insane_alien
October 23rd, 2006, 05:12 PM
the maximum file size of FAT32 is 4GiB but it can handle volume sizes of 2TiB

DoctorMO
October 23rd, 2006, 05:42 PM
Ah! I see so you would need to partition it into several virtual drives.

I wonder how well linux deals with this.

Lord Illidan
October 23rd, 2006, 05:43 PM
No..U don't need to partition it, unless the drive is over 2TB.

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 05:46 PM
I would anyways. I'd make most of it ext3, and then leave a little space as fat32 for whenever i have to use a windows computer (not very often anymore)

alecjw
October 23rd, 2006, 07:15 PM
It doesn't look at all hopeful that flash will take over data storage - compare the bytes/cm3 of 64GB the size of a pen drive with the largest 3 1/2inch hard disk in the world - 1/2EB (500TB)... Unlikely...

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 07:20 PM
well, the technology is still in it's infancy, obviously. A LOT of research and development is being done on this front, so you can certainly expect it to go a long way. the 32GB drive doesn't look any significantly bigger than my 256MB one.

admittedly, it won't immediately become the solution for mass storage needs (mass means upward of 200-300 TB), but it'll get there eventually, imho.

Lord Illidan
October 23rd, 2006, 07:21 PM
It doesn't look at all hopeful that flash will take over data storage - compare the bytes/cm3 of 64GB the size of a pen drive with the largest 3 1/2inch hard disk in the world - 1/2EB (500TB)... Unlikely...

I can assure you that people said the same thing for harddrives, when one the size of a washing machine barely held 10 MB... As technology progresses, size will eventually decrease.

Old Pink
October 23rd, 2006, 07:57 PM
http://www.kanguru.com/flashdrive_max.html <from the same manufacturer 64GB !

That's twice the memory... for half the price. :o

Something's not right there... :-k

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 08:27 PM
That's twice the memory... for half the price. :o

Something's not right there... :-k
lol....

Lord Illidan
October 23rd, 2006, 08:28 PM
That's twice the memory... for half the price. :o

Something's not right there... :-k

Aye, now I'm realising it.

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 08:31 PM
well looks like the biggest you can buy is 16GB, and that's 630 dollars. (what it says when you click "buy now"). kinda weird.

Kateikyoushi
October 23rd, 2006, 08:52 PM
yeah, those drives will be awesome. The only problem right now, i think, is how big they can make them. Last I heard, 32GB was indeed the largest. Didnt know they'd made them into thumbdrives as well. neat.

Samsung and sony has notebooks which come with it already. Next year these will cost roughly half the price or twice the capacity, and did I mention improved speed with the new chips. ;)

chaosgeisterchen
October 23rd, 2006, 09:14 PM
HDDs of this new type will be great.. I already said it.

Kateikyoushi
October 23rd, 2006, 09:25 PM
I just said, they are already great. ;)

chaosgeisterchen
October 23rd, 2006, 09:28 PM
Hehe, no doubt 'bout that. I am really curious about what they will cost.

Ramses de Norre
October 23rd, 2006, 10:13 PM
How silent would a pc be with this technology.. only the sound of the fans =)

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 10:15 PM
yes, pretty much :) and hey, I said before everyone that it's great :p haha actually, the ITLA club at our school did discuss this a few weeks ago.

alecjw
October 23rd, 2006, 10:18 PM
How silent would a pc be with this technology.. only the sound of the fans =)

My HDD's pretty much silent. It's a 7,200RPM so it probably makes a fair amount of ultrasonic/supersonic or whatever it's called. In fact, my whole PC's more of less silent too. It's just the graphics card fan which makes the noise.

Ramses de Norre
October 23rd, 2006, 10:21 PM
My psu fan is getting old.. it makes some ticking noise and my hdd's are sometimes pretty noisy too..
But I can live with it, I mostly turn on music so I don't hear the pc anyway ;)

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 10:22 PM
lucky you. my hard drives are not silent at all. one of them groans loudly every 15-20 minutes if its being used. it's been doing that for a year at least. It really sucks. But i'm replacing that one soon with this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136003)

My other drive is okay. You can hear it if you really try, but meh. i'm not that picky.

chaosgeisterchen
October 23rd, 2006, 10:30 PM
How silent would a pc be with this technology.. only the sound of the fans =)

Water cooling anyone?

maniacmusician
October 23rd, 2006, 10:33 PM
dont know anything about water cooling. it sounds interesting, but kind of like a hassle to set up too.

chaosgeisterchen
October 23rd, 2006, 10:54 PM
Not really as far as I know. And it's absolutely silent, not a single sound from it.

Watercooling your chipset, CPU and GPU saves you a lot of sound. Super silent flash-based HDDs only improve the silence. Desktops at the sound level of notebooks.

Kateikyoushi
October 23rd, 2006, 11:52 PM
My vaio X505 has no fans so I can't wait till the 1.8" version of SSD comes with ata connector current models use zif, then I can throw out the last moving component from my noti and enjoy the silence.

Old Pink
October 24th, 2006, 12:43 AM
Agreed, this technology + water cooling would be very nice. :)