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Flash Drives Go To Work
feminazi writes "USB drive capacity is outpacing Moore's Law by doubling every year, evolving from tchotchkes to devices capable of addressing corporate needs ranging from mobile computing platforms to files stores with encryption and biometrics protection. SanDisk and M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers launched a thumb drive with an intelligent U3 chip that can store and launch applications. Lexar's premium JumpDrive Lightning thumb drive has the fastest data-transfer rates at 18MB/sec write and 24MB/sec read. And some are strong on the outside, too. SanDisk touts a drive built to withstand 2,000 lbs. of pressure. Computerworld tested that claim by repeatedly driving a Volkswagen Beetle over the ruggedized thumb drive. While the drive's body came away with a few scratches, there were no dents, and not a single lost file."
It's a great feature that SanDisk has a flash drive that can be driven over. However, I can't think of the number of times I have forgotten those little buggers in my pockets when they've gone in the wash and the number of time they've come out and still worked perfectly normally. I have got to say, in a day and age when things break if you look at them wrong, it's great that we have invented the 21st century's response to the swiss army knife.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
Surely you've seen this?
Man, you really need that seminar!
On some drives, like the ones my college bookstore carries, you can't access the writable portion of the drive until after the U3 software is loaded into Windows. Hell, I couldn't even get past it using my Linux laptop.
And the U3 software fails on virtually every computer on campus, because the computers are locked down in such a way that one cannot install device drivers using a normal student account.
The real kicker? They're replacing all the PCs in the campus labs with ones without floppy drives. So even those poor kids with only a few hundred KB of data will have to use a flash drive, and us student assistants will have to support them.
Already, I've had to tell too many students that yes, they can access their data from home with that flash drive. No, they won't be able to use that flash drive here. Yes, I realize their assignment is due in twenty minutes. No, there's nothing I can do about it; I don't have any greater a degree of access than they do.
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Is this really news? Flash drives have been around a while now, and I seem to remember hearing about cars being driven over them almost a year ago. Didn't Corsair do that already?
It's a common non-mistake. A sort of ironic joke: he means he resents it, but it describes him perfectly so it resembles him. As far as I know, it comes from Looney Tunes, but I could be way off.
If you use modern tapes or hard disks (who the hell still uses *sequential media*), then that's still more bandwidth than any backbone link on the net.
Especially if you use the Boeing 737 version of old saying.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Moore's famous "law", previously a handy rough predictor for the maximum obtainable complexity of ICs (integrated circuits, e.g. CPUs) is often unappropriately applied to fields which it has nothing to do with, e.g. the maximum capacity of HDDs. Does it apply in this case?
depends on the following
1 size and capacity of the drives
2 useable volume of said beetle (rip seats out? boxes/bags the drives are in)
3 current sanity/skill level of driver (adjust for injested chemicals/aural enhancements)
Rip the beetle down to the shell and bag the drives , load the driver, put some good rock and roll in the tape deck and you could get some massive bandwidth
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
First, its not a joke, its an observation.
Second, the grammar is scrambled, yielding a mixed up Metaphor. We know what he was trying to say, he just did a really bad job of saying it. Dubyaspeak
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Firewire has less cpu over head and firewire 400 is faster then usb 2.0 480 megabits in testing.
How long in till we start to see E-SATA drives and firewire drives? Hard disks will come with flash ram on them soon likely runing at speeds that use the full SATA 300 bus.
Windows vista use of usb keys for VM sound like a bad idea when hard disks are faster and have less cpu over head. Some one should make internal SATA flash drives for that.
Is there any work being done on usb 3?
They are already large enough to hold usable operating systems like Linux.
Damn Small Linux and CPXmini (a slick little Kanotix remaster) run fine from USB sticks. If you have the space, you can install a full distro and keep a storage partition for files you wish to save.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Here's one FireWire flash drive. Although the speeds might be faster, I like USB better just because *everything* has a USB port nowadays, but many computers (like my Dell desktop and Dell work laptop) lack FireWire ports.
The idea of a home server that doesn't need any computer per se is in its infancy: 160 GB HD, iTunes sharing, BitTorrent client, all self-contained so you can set it and take your laptop with you while your home connection continues to download all your favorite Creative Commons licensed Ogg Tarkin video files. I like it!
For more information, click here.
At work we're seeing a larger number of motherboards where the USB suddenly fails. It only seems to happen to those using drives or palm sync devices.
If the enterprise uses flash drives more, will we end up replacing more motherboards as well?
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
No kidding. I once saw a puppy get rolled over by a jeep/SUV thing.
This pup was, unbeknowst to me, following me down the road. By the time I heard it, we were a considerable distance from its home. So I began to walk back, as the pup would not take a hint. After a few metres, I heard the sound of the oncoming jeep. So did the pup. He wasn't too bright, and, spooked and leashless, panicked and began tearing down the road as fast as possible, towards home and away from the jeep.
He just kept running, and the jeep just kept coming. The pup was zigzagging back and forth all over the single lane country road. The jeep continued onwards, straight and steady, not altering its course in the slightest. The driver must have been a grade-A asshole. Anyway, as I watched, the jeep finally caught up with the puppy. He was right in the middle of the road, but at the last second dived right just in time to be firmly rolled over the the jeeps right front tire. The jeep continued on its way, without altering speed.
As I watched, transfixed, the pup rolled to its feet, staggering and wobbling, its neck craned rather sickenly to its right, head pointing upwards. It let out these awful drawn yelps, over and over, its eyes looking right at me, head still craned upwards. It slowly began to stagger back towards me, neck still crooked, looking like the living dead.
Anyway, after a few seconds, it stopped yelping, turned its head back into a normal position, and padded back over to me, tail a little droopy, but wagging. I must have gawped at it for about ten minutes, fully expecting it to suddenly and theatrically resume its death agonies and loudly expire. It just sniffed at the ground.
Taking that dog back to its owner to tell them their puppy had just been run over was one of the most surreal expieriences of my life. True story.
May the Maths Be with you!
My wife backed our Jetta onto my foot once, and then stopped it there when I yelled at her. (She claims it was accidental :) It wasn't comfortable, but it didn't break my foot either.