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We've recently been inundated with a handful or two of product samples from different companies seeking to make a splash by making their key chain drives stand out from the competition. Generally, most we've tried work as advertised, though some are better than others.

DigitalWay's MPIO HS100 portable hard drive.
Two recent entrants from Iomega (nyse: IOM - news - people ) are the 512-MB Mini Drive and the 128-MB Micro Mini Drive. Iomega is the company that launched the 100-MB Zip Drive in the 1990s, which made high-capacity portable storage popular.

The 512-MB Mini Drive ($200) is about what you'd expect from a key chain drive. It's about the size of a man's thumb (they are sometimes called "thumb drives," after all) and uses a fast USB 2.0 connection. That makes it awfully handy for taking large files with you on short notice. We loaded a 27-megabyte videoclip, the trailer for The Return of the King, onto the drive in about five seconds.

Iomega also supports its active disk technology on the drive, which lets you run software like Open Office, an open source alternative to Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) office software, directly from the drive.

By contrast, the 128-MB Micro Mini Drive ($70) is much cuter but smaller than the larger Mini. This one is about half the size of a man's thumb and comes with an attachable chain that can be worn around the neck--its size does make it easy to lose. It connects to the PC using the older USB 1.1 standard, so it loads data much more slowly. It took about 30 seconds to copy that Return of the King trailer.

Another brand of key chain drive we've come to appreciate is the DiskOnKey from M-Systems (nasdaq: FLSH - news - people ). Many companies sell drives that are actually manufactured by M-Systems and then re-branded, and it holds a lot of patents on the technology and spends a good deal of effort paying lawyers to defend those patents from numerous knock-offs.

We recently tried a 256-MB DiskOnKey Classic with a USB 2.0 connection. Installed onboard was a software package called Xkey, which gives access to a Microsoft Outlook account from any computer it's plugged into. With less than a minute's work at configuration, the program on the drive gives access to the Outlook in-box, contacts and calendar. When new mail arrived, a little message announcing it appeared in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Several DiskOnKey models are available in different capacities as high as 1 gigabyte. The company sells them primarily through partners like IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), but it also has an online store. Prices on DiskOnKey Classic range from $100 for a 128-MB unit to $549 for a 1-GB model.

Another drive we tried was the MPIO HS100 from South Korea's DigitalWay. Known mostly as a brand of digital music player, the $200 MPIO contains a 1.5-gigabyte hard drive rather than the conventional flash memory used by most key chain

this is the beginning of a new era.

eventually we will have disposable computing devices.

you see already products like migo, Xkey for corporate mail and groupware, backup buddy etal

there is a good article on the register describing this trend

Software Cures MSBlaster Pain for MS Exchange; Web-based Approach to Exchange Pays Dividends
9/10/2003 10:29:00 AM

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 10, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Seaside Software's products, HiPerExchange and Xkey, have proved their worth for users during the recent MSBlaster crisis. While other companies have scrambled to re-connect their remote Outlook users suddenly cut off by multiple ISPs, Seaside customers have continued to access Exchange without interruption to critical business endeavors.

Companies with remote Outlook users can consider a number of alternatives for accessing their Exchange server, says David Ferris, President and Analyst of messaging consultancy at Ferris Research. The downside is they either add significant cost and complexity (VPNs, wholesale client/server upgrades) or drop majority functionality (eg, offline use in the case of Outlook Web Access). With Seaside's approach, users get rich client features (e.g., offline use, synched online performance, archiving) with their web client, HiPerExchange. By keeping all communications with the server web-based, they sidestep issues caused by worms such as MSBlaster while delivering Exchange to remote users.

The price of running MS Outlook on the desktop may far exceed its
price...!

try www.seasidesw.com

My organization is not like yours. My organization is not HiPerExchange.

if your organization is like ours and 95% of the time you use the VPN for MS Exchange access check out the HiPerExchange

We have a netscreen 10 that has a VPN in it.. It was never implemented because the only access these
people need is our exchange and the public folders. So there was no need to implement a VPN . and we use the Hiperexchnage and it even MSblaster proof

if your organization is like ours and 95% of the time you use the VPN for MS Exchange access check out the HiPerExchange

We have a netscreen 10 that has a VPN in it.. It was never implemented because the only access these
people need is our exchange and the public folders. So there was no need to implement a VPN . and we use the Hiperexchnage and it even MSblaster proof

if your organization is like ours and 95% of the time you use the VPN for MS Exchange access, check out the HiPerExchange

We have a netscreen 10 that has a VPN in it.. It was never implemented because the only access these
people need is our exchange and the public folders. So there was no need to implement a VPN . and we use the Hiperexchnage and it even MSblaster proof

if your organization is like ours and 95% of the time you use the VPN for MS Exchange access, check out the HiPerExchange

We have a netscreen 10 that has a VPN in it.. It was never implemented because the only access these
people need is our exchange and the public folders. So there was no need to implement a VPN . and we use the Hiperexchnage and it even MSblaster proof

HiPerExchange is a WebDAV server that runs on the machines of individual email users, allowing them to efficiently access email using Outlook Web Access. See the HiPerExchange Technology Primer for more detailed information.

HiPerExchange is a WebDAV server that runs on the machines of individual email users, allowing them to efficiently access email using Outlook Web Access. See the HiPerExchange Technology Primer for more detailed information.

from the seaside software web site: What it is:
HiPerExchange is software only solution that is installed on the remote PC (Win '98 and
up; IE 5.0+). No server-side component whatsoever. Does require E2K
server, not 5.5, however.

Target user: remote/mobile Exchange user who faces Outlook slowdown over
low-speed lines
IT shops that wish to expand browser-based mail use
thru high performance, offline use

What it does:
Background http(s) synch to pull down user's mail store. Synchs headers,
bodies, attachments (admn-definied customization optional). Synch default
is 3 minutes; can be forced from tray icon

Once synched, user runs online OWA per normal (transparently). But local
data (mails, attches) come from local disk (@ 1 second response time). OWA
logic also cached so New Mail Message frame comes from disk as well.
Overall improvement: 10X performance increse per user

When not connected, user simply opens browser to view and run offline
mail. Compose/Reply/Forward and many major (not all) offline functions
supported. Make changes which are sent upon next synch.

Why it's good: facilitate web-based Exchange for more users, inexpensively
UI performance no longer dependent on network speed (eliminate MAPI on the
WAN)
No fat client to maintain
No VPN client to maintain (SSL VPNs)
Exceed 2 GB OST/PST limits; no PST mgmt.
No user re-training; in fact, simpler as users only run browsers
Cache is encrypted using 3DES, Blowfish
Even better with Titanium which is 100% WebDAV based (our core IP); run
Rich Mode everywhere over lowest speed circuits

If you also need secure and fast connections to your remote US exchange server

try HiPerExchange , works great even on slow lines and on exchange 2000 with SSL