Flash drive/zip drive?

[musical74]

I'm going to get a new computer soon YAY! and have stuff on here I want on the new computer. One of these two is a *travel drive" I THINK but I don't know for sure - maybe it's the same thing, dont know... and don't know how much these cost. What's the *correct* drive name, how much do they run, and were can I find it?

Getting a computer that has 512 MB RAM and 80 G HD space....big upgrade from the 128 MB and 12 G HD I have now! Yeah, yeah, I know, I think the current batch is like a Gig of Ram and 120 G HD space but....one step at a time =)

[PyTom]

The zip drive is a fairly old storage device that stored a relatively small amount of data, on a fairly expensive disk. They're basically obsolete by today's standards.

You want a USB flash drive. Newegg has some fairly good deals on them:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory ... ash-Drives

I'd suggest you want at least a 2 gig drive. Alternatively, if you're mechanically inclined, you could pop the hard drive out of your old machine, and stick it in a USB hard drive enclosure.

Or you could network the two computers together, and send the files over that way.

[Lambda '00']

you could pop the hard drive out of your old machine, and stick it in a USB hard drive enclosure.

Ah yes, I <3 the IDE->USB cable.

[mikey]

I love my Flash drive - they say that the data gets corrupted sometimes, and indeed it happened to me a few times, but I always recovered it with those "undelete" tools, and it also may have been Windows, rather than teh Flash drive's problem.

They also say that a Flash drive stops working after don't-know-how-many times you've written on it - but it never happened to me, or anyone I know.

I actually use it everyday, like a carry-all portable data storage - I have my backups there, my no-install tools, so I can stick it into any USB-ready computer with Windows and start working more or less like on my home computer. So it's really great.

Mine is 4GB, and I found that to be okay - it's enough space for my personal things, as well as enough for any other goodies I may want to take from a friend when I visit ^_^.

[Jake]

I love my Flash drive - they say that the data gets corrupted sometimes, and indeed it happened to me a few times, but I always recovered it with those "undelete" tools, and it also may have been Windows, rather than teh Flash drive's problem.

(As it goes, I believe the answer is usually a combination of the two and the user - especially if you can use 'undelete' software to recover the files. Flash drives typically use Microsoft's FAT32 filesystem, which is prone to losing track of free space and data because of the way the file allocation table (FAT) is written. Deletes are usually performed by simply removing the file from the allocation table and leaving the data on disk, because it's faster than removing the data, which is why undelete software can usually recover 'lost' files.
The most common cause of FAT corruption is the user making changes to the data on the disk, then disconnecting it without using Windows' "Safely remove hardware" system, found in the system tray while the device is plugged in. The same problem used to happen to hard disks if the user powered off without shutting down properly, because the shutdown did the same FAT-finalisation as the 'safely remove hardware' tool. That said, FAT is notoriously a bit flaky anyway, it's safest to run scandisk over your flash disk from time to time.)

I actually use it everyday, like a carry-all portable data storage - I have my backups there, my no-install tools, so I can stick it into any USB-ready computer with Windows and start working more or less like on my home computer. So it's really great.

I do the same thing with my 40GB iRiver - I bought it to listen to music while at work or out cycling, and since then I've used it just as much as a data-transfer device. To the point that if I had to buy it again, I'd probably go for a smaller flash-based music player and a portable USB hard drive instead, 'cause most of the space in the iRiver has things other than music in.

[yvanc]

I'd say go with the flash drive, its portable, easy to carry and have quite a decent capacity. You can even make it a key chain. Select the best design that suits you. ^_^ I've seen flash drives that looked like dumplings they sell in the restaurant ahehehehehe.

[Adorya]

Another problem with usb flash disk is, like portable phone, that you can easily lose it or be stolen because of its small size. They are also prone to escape from your hand at the bad time and be damaged by falling to the ground (and run far away under a desk or worse, in some street damp).

I prefer to use a travel hdisk with an average size significant enough to take care of, power independant and well protected. Currently my bag is carrying a 120 Go USB Lacie Hdd, I have a few others sleeping as backup at different places that are easy to synchronize and fast plug and play, perfect for work that require quite huge amount of data update with no internet connection.

The 120 Go is worth around 90€ (bought it 2 month ago) , the 80 one a bit less I suppose but I don't know if it's still on sale now.