USB Flash Drive Larger than 2Gb

  • Thread starter Thread starter Manzoorul Hassan
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Manzoorul Hassan

I have already posted a similar question to
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage but thought I'd ask here too.

Is there a technical limitation to how large the Flash Drives can be?
Or is it more of a current supply-demand and cost-to-manufacture type
issue? In other words, should I expect to see a 4Gb USB 2.0 Flash Drive
(for a reasonable price) sometime over the next year?

Really appreciate, and looking forward to, your response and comments.

- manzoor
 
Manzoorul Hassan said:
I have already posted a similar question to
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage but thought I'd ask here too.

Is there a technical limitation to how large the Flash Drives can be?
Or is it more of a current supply-demand and cost-to-manufacture type
issue? In other words, should I expect to see a 4Gb USB 2.0 Flash Drive
(for a reasonable price) sometime over the next year?

Really appreciate, and looking forward to, your response and comments.

- manzoor
Click to expand...

http://www.lexar.com/newsroom/press/press_01_03_06.html

"In addition to its new JumpDrive products, Lexar is upgrading
several existing models to reflect customer needs in terms of
design, speed, efficiency, and capacity. Lexar's award-winning
premium flash drive, the high-capacity JumpDrive Lightning will
feature increased performance of 150x write speed and will be
available in a new 4GB capacity version."

Paul
 
The only limitation is the capacity of the chips used to make the drive. As
long as those capacities keep increasing, they'll keep making larger thumb
drives.


I have already posted a similar question to
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage but thought I'd ask here too.

Is there a technical limitation to how large the Flash Drives can be?
Or is it more of a current supply-demand and cost-to-manufacture type
issue? In other words, should I expect to see a 4Gb USB 2.0 Flash Drive
(for a reasonable price) sometime over the next year?

Really appreciate, and looking forward to, your response and comments.

- manzoor
 
It's not a normal "physical" size but I just bought a 8GB flash drive for
$150!!!!

I've been using it for a month now and it works great. A little on the
slower side when compaired to it's $600 counter part but if space is what
you are after then you can't beat the price. So I wait an extra 2 minutes
for the full 8GB to transfer. So what! It beats burning two DVDs everytime
or expensive dual layer DVDs.

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10268
 
It's not a normal "physical" size but I just bought a 8GB flash drive for
$150!!!!
Click to expand...

Are you SURE that's a flash drive?
Might be a micro hard drive in it. Important distinction
was hard drives are far less robust and wear out, in
addition to using more power (though this latter detail not
so important for USB use as other typical flash scenarios).
 
Hum...it could be. If it is then it was assembled into it's own casing.
When I use it I feel no vibration at all from it. But then again the casing
it pretty hefty.
 
Hum...it could be. If it is then it was assembled into it's own casing.
When I use it I feel no vibration at all from it. But then again the casing
it pretty hefty.
Click to expand...

That's not all bad though, it'd tend to be a little faster
performing than if it had the cheapest flash chips in it to
drive down the price. Right now, an 8GB device with low-end
flash would cost ruoghl $400 if there were sufficient market
to sell enough (at least based on scaling of the lower
sizes).

However, "some" devices that use the memory as well as some
memory devices themselves seem to perform better with
FAT(16) not FAT32 filesystem which pegs the upper limit at
2GB.
 
I actually have seen similar products from Seagate (I believe), but I
don't think these are flash drives.

Thanx for the suggestion though.

- manzoor
 
I wonder how soon I'll be able to buy one of these.

By "I'll be able to buy" I mean "I'll be able to find and be able to
afford" ;o)

- manzoor
 
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