Slashdot Mirror
16GB Flash USB Dongle
Derek Dongle writes "This is great — Toshiba plans to bring out a limited edition 16GB USB dongle. What would you do with 16GB in your pocket? Who knows? As the writer of this story says, "It may be one of the occasional cases of: who cares? It's a 16GB USB drive that fits in your pocket and weighs 12 grams!" I'm not quite sure I want to call it a dongle. At 8x2 cm it's not the smallest thing to attach to a keychain. But at 16 GB you could keep a good bit of your life there, provided you aren't working in audio or video. I keep a 1GB stick on my keychain, which is enough for almost anything.
Let's face it, most "keychain" drives are flimsy affairs made of plastic, with tops that pop off easily--hardly the kind of thing you want to carry around every day in your pocket (especially if you're active). I wouldn't every want to drop these things, much less think of them going through the wash or getting banged around by my keys.
How about we see some more durable drives in larger sizes? Hell, I'd be willing to pay a premium for something I could rely on to take a beating.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just think how frustrated you get when you lose your keys at the moment...now imagine 16gb going missing with them!
Hey if it's enough for the NES, Gameboy, GBA, SNES, Gamegear, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Original PC, most pocket organizers, wrist watches, VCRs, automated robots, door locks, garage door openers, bank machines, your mother, optical mice, printers, monitors, FAX machines, VoIP phones and smart cards, it's good enough for me.
You is not funny.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Probably sit on it and break it. 8 cm long? Not short enough to prevent bending it should I sit on something that could act as a lever... like the edge of a subway seat.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Please, for the children, use TrueCrypt.
I agree why would I want to buy something that only stores 16 gigs for over a $150? Besides what would I store on it, Music? No, I can store more than 16 gigs on my MP3 player. If I need a big portable storage for data I will spend the money on an external USB drive. The 16 gigs is to much for a flash drive right now. It won't be cheap and your better off going with an external USB drive.
It seems to be overkill for anything I normally would use a flash drive for and to small to carry music on. It's an odd duck.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
"But at 16gb you could keep a good bit of your life there, provided you aren't working in audio or video. I keep a 1GB stick on my keychain which is enough for almost anything."
Two years ago it would have been:
But at 1GB you could keep a good bit of your life there, provided you aren't working in audio or video. I keep a 64MB stick on my keychain which is enough for almost anything.
Four years ago it would have been:
But at 64MB you could keep a good bit of your life there, provided you aren't working in audio or video. The convenience would make this a useful investment and allow us to throw the good old floppy away for good.
In 2010 it'll be:
But at 512GB you could keep a good bit of your life there. I keep a 32GB stick on my keychain which is enough for almost anything.
So, it's a *limited edition*? :)
Considering "640K shoudl be enough for everyone", we'll be carrying 32GB flashier soon, and the 16GB limited edition won't be anything special
What would you do with 16GB in your pocket?
Besides carrying my files in it, I plug in my headphones and listen to music while I'm working out.
When will they learn that this is not what we want. We want things that work, and work for a long time. I am sick of buying things that break after a few years. My grandmother has a vacumn cleaner that has worked for over 20 years. I honestly have yet to find a vacumn cleaner these days that work beyond a few years. I don't care about bigger and better, I care about smarter and tougher. Unless documents become over 5 megabytes a file, I will not spend my money on this. I will spend that same money and a few extra bucks to get a LaCie external hard drive.
Music, my drug; dance, my ecstasy.
Most folks that I know use usb flash drives for backup and sneaker-net transfer. I wonder what the tranfer rate will be on this. Filling a 1G drive right now takes a fair while. If the transfer rates don't go up, having all that extra space doesn't really help you in a practical -I need to get this copy done and catch the bus in 10 minutes- kind of way.
No more than do external hard drives, or any other portable media.
The potential of bad uses shouldn't preclude any good uses.
antipaucity
You already have a post above yours from someone that has owned several and generally had problems.
I would expect it to be a lot more durable than a DVD or CD - these things cost a lot more! A DVD blank is under $1. There are 16GB thumb drives but they cost $750. I think the 4GB drives are around $100, which is about 100x the cost per GB. I expect the more expensive device to be a lot more durable.
The usage is a lot different too, not too many people tried carrying optical discs in their pockets, but that fits the thumb drive.
Not if you own 10 or so disney/pixar movies and you have put them on the dongle to save space/wear and tear on the disks.
You know, you bring up a good point with this flash stick. Check out the numbers:
Memory Size 64GB
Write Speed 1 MB/s
If these things are gonna be larger and larger, they're really gonna have to work on the speed. The stick you point out would need to be partitioned and used in an LVM-like fashion (add partitions as you need space), simply because formatting it would take almost 18 hours.
Granted -- after initial formatting, you wouldn't need to write 64GB all at once to the stick, but even for "smaller" items (DVD-quality movies, large quantities of music, etc), you're still talking a little over an hour.
Capacity is wonderful -- if it's actually practical to use.
My boss just looked over my shoulder and said 16 gig! that's two movies!! How much are they?
It's like giving BB guns to kids.. you know they're gonna get themselves in trouble.
Your boss needs to learn about DivX/XviD. 16GB is more like 23 movies. (Assuming 700MB/movie.)
Centralization breaks the internet.
It is if you are in the US. Ever hear of the DMCA?
Dammit Otto, you have lupus.