Thumb Drive Recommendation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hymer
  • Start date Start date
H

Hymer

Hello Everyone,

I want to get a low capacity thumb drive to put on a keychain. This will be
used primarily for personal medical records and I would like a drive that
does not require a driver.

Does anyone know of a good 128 or 256 MB drive that can hook onto a keychain
and not need a driver?

Thanks,

Bob
 
My 1 gig Sandisk installs automatically with XP. No need to have a driver cd
if you are using xp. Every thumbdrive (aboutr 3 brands) you buy from circuit
city will install automatically in xp. That 128 is going to fill up quick
though, and these things are getting cheaper every few months. Definitely go
with the 256.
 
Ted Zieglar said:
Plenty of reviews and comparisons on the internet. Here's one example:
http://tinyurl.com/c3awk
Click to expand...


Bob:
First of all, a driver is unnecessary if you're going to use the thumb drive
in an XP (or Me)environment. If you're going to use it with the Win9x
operating systems, then you will need a driver which is always included with
the device.

You can, of course, do a Google search for reviews of thumb drives,
including the link provided by Ted.

We've used a number of different thumb drives. One of the ones we
particularly like is the Lexar Lightning model (like many jump drives it has
a loop at the end so you can attach it to a keychain). It has proven very
reliable with excellent speed performance. But it does come in only 1 GB & 2
GB models and I realize you've said you're looking for one with a 128 or 256
MB capacity. But do consider a larger capacity jump drive. The difference in
price between them is not terribly high for the larger capacity models - at
least those in the 512 MB range. In general, these devices are
extraordinarily useful in your day-to-day computing operations
notwithstanding your particular need. And I've yet to hear a single user
complain that he or she is sorry about purchasing a larger-capacity jump
drive than they originally thought they needed. Invariably it's the reverse.
It's the same old story...
* You can't be too rich
* You can't be too thin
* And you can't have too much memory
Anna
 
pardon me if this is obvious and redundant but

a. Be very sure to have backup copies of your data.

b. Do not keep sensitive data on flash drives unprotected.
Think what if the drive is lost or stolen.
There are models with encryption but don't assume it is reliable.

Regards,
--PA
 
| Hello Everyone,
|
| I want to get a low capacity thumb drive to put on a keychain. This will
be
| used primarily for personal medical records and I would like a drive that
| does not require a driver.
|
| Does anyone know of a good 128 or 256 MB drive that can hook onto a
keychain
| and not need a driver?
|
| Thanks,
|
| Bob

I've had one of these
http://www.lexar.com/jumpdrive/jd_sport.html
on my keychain for over a year. Very durable and a cap that won't come off.

--
Doug

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details. :)

Remove shoes to E-mail.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/hillbillybuddhist/
 
If I had to pick one USB flash drive today based on your requirements, it
would be the Corsair Flash Voyager USB 2.0 Drives.

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/flash_memory.html
http://www.3dgameman.com/vr/corsair/flash_voyager/video_review_03.html

The nice thing about this particular product is its DURABILITY, it's
completely encased in rubber. Comes w/ a lanyard and USB cable too. And
the lanyard hook is sturdy. Many of the the other USB flash drives are
quite fragile, and wouldn't take much to break the lanyard hook either. As
always, you want to make sure that the half that's connected to the
lanyard/keychain is the flash body, NOT the cap!

One other thing I would consider manadatory for medical records is security.
The Corsair Flash Voyager can create a hidden password-protected partition,
just in case you should lose it. I don't believe it's encrypted though,
that would be even better. But you can always install a freeware product
like AxCrypt ( http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/ ), TrueCrypt (
http://www.truecrypt.org/ ) or similar to add encryption as well.

Jim
 
Hymer said:
Hello Everyone,

I want to get a low capacity thumb drive to put on a keychain. This will be
used primarily for personal medical records and I would like a drive that
does not require a driver.

Does anyone know of a good 128 or 256 MB drive that can hook onto a keychain
and not need a driver?

Thanks,

Bob
Click to expand...
 
Drop over at the local Office Depot. They got those sizes and bigger made
by Sandisk. XP doesn't need a driver

I would question if every medical establishment PC can access a thumbdrive
due to restrictions made by the IT personnel, or the OS used, or the USB
controller hardware nonexistent or not implemented. That's a helluva gotcha
while bleeding in the emergency room.
 
Jonny said:
Drop over at the local Office Depot. They got those sizes and bigger made
by Sandisk. XP doesn't need a driver

I would question if every medical establishment PC can access a thumbdrive
due to restrictions made by the IT personnel, or the OS used, or the USB
controller hardware nonexistent or not implemented. That's a helluva
gotcha
while bleeding in the emergency room.
Click to expand...


Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Much appreciated.

Bob
 
Jim,

The good news is that most thumb drives can be converted using WindowsXP
"Convert.exe" to NTFS and then you can have the WindowsXP own encryption
method. Just remember that when encrypted, it will only be readable on the
original PC on which the files were written unless you also carry the
Certificate, which should not be on the same USB drive as the encrypted
files.
 
Pavel said:
Jim,

The good news is that most thumb drives can be converted using WindowsXP
"Convert.exe" to NTFS and then you can have the WindowsXP own encryption
method. Just remember that when encrypted, it will only be readable on the
original PC on which the files were written unless you also carry the
Certificate, which should not be on the same USB drive as the encrypted
files.
Click to expand...

Good to know, didn't realize this. But how realistic is this if I have to
carry the certificate on another USB drive?! Just seems that in this case,
using a freeware encryption w/ password (something you can simply remember
rather than a physical authorization in the form of a file) would be much
more convenient. Once you need to carry the certificate w/ you, there's
almost no point in using encryption, not w/ a portable USB drive anyway.
Where it might make sense is if I had two or three other PCs, and routinely
moved data via the USB drive among them. If each could have a copy of the
certificate installed, then this *would* prove useful, and just as
important, provide transparency. Is that possibe?

Jim
 
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