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Blazing Dual Channel Thumb Drive
Anonomisk Howard writes "The speed results from Big Bruin's review of OCZ's latest flash drive have me lusting for a new thumb drive. From the review: 'The OCZ Rally drive is not a radical new design, it does not look significantly different than any other USB 2.0 drive on the market, but then you plug it in and begin to use it. This thing smokes! The transfer times shown in the charts are what this drive is all about. If you want the fastest, sleekest, and most extreme drive currently on the market, this is the one to get.'"
I love my thumb drives, but trying to do "disk" intensive work like BIG spreadsheets can be a bit pokie. It looks like this is just what the Dr Ordered!
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
Maybe to make sure you don't misplace it too easily?
I'm sure James Bond uses the same thing but with a smaller form factor.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
if every thumb drive was 1cm square, you would lose within a week. the drives right now are just the right size to slip in a pocket or on a key ring, if they were any smaller they'd just be impractical.
How much do advertisements like this cost? Sure could use some publicity like this for my business. That summary sounds like it was pasted from some webstore. The most extreme thumbdrive? Please.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
... and it's "the most extreme"! But how does one gauge "extreme"? Is there such a thing as an "extrem-O-meter"?
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
The review makes a big deal of the casing being made of aluminum, not plastic, and the unit having some heft to it (making it feel more solid).
I don't know why this is an advantage, however, other than cosmetically. Aluminum cases are a tiny bit more mechanically stable than plastic, especially cheap plastics... but since I'm not hitting my flash drives with a hammer, it doesn't matter to me. Proper design would prevent flexion from being a problem too, if I accidentally left it in my back pocket and sat down or something.
I'm also guessing that manufacturing costs for aluminum are less, not sure about materials cost.
Anyone out there who could shed some insight into why aluminum is preferred over well-designed plastic?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I think it's really stretching things to refer to anything that writes at 17MB/sec as having "blazing speed". Sure it's faster than most thumb drives but that's like bragging about being the world's tallest midget.
yeah, but they wear out just like a woman
Physics is imagination in a straight jacket. ~John Moffat
Others have pointed out that it's easy to lose a very small item.
Another factor is ease of use. I personally have sausage-fingers, so something 1-cm square is very awkward to handle. I'm sure other slashdotters have the same problem. Throw in the fact that I enjoy the occasional adult beverage (or three) in the evening, and that teeny drive is almost impossible to use.
Also, many USB drives are recessed, it's hard to grasp something that doesn't stick out past the surface of your case at least a cm or two.
Finally, a rectangle is much better than a square, it's easier to figure out which is the business end. And since you're going rectangular, it makes sense to use a shape that's visually pleasing -- slimline, not clunky.
So, to sum up: don't wanna lose it, ergonomics, and product acceptance.
P.S. The drive reviewed has an aluminum casing, not plastic.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Some of us aren't "most people", and would like more/faster thumb drives. Personally, I run Portable Thunderbird off of one of mine, and I wouldn't mind a bit faster transfer speeds...especially when I have to backup 100+megs of email. Not to mention that opening a large pdf file off of a thumb drive can be a slow process.
Just because you use your thumb drive one way, don't assume everyone else uses theirs the same way.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Jesus christ man, why don't you just read the fucking article? With the effort that you put into your post you could have found the answers yourself. Because you actually did put in the effort to post I am going to assume that you are not too lazy to find the information on your own. You are just to stupid.
Why not take this further? If you can write data twice as fast by simultaneously writing to two internal flash chips, why not use 4? or 8? Hell, then you can even internally RAID 5 'em!
And don't even start with the "What, aren't flash drives fast enough already!?" line. My company was tasked with setting up a accounting firm to cheaply work from home, via USB thumb drives. Copying 3 meg spread across a few thousand small files took something on the order of 15 minutes. It's pretty hard to get people to synch nightly on their way out the door with times like that.