Data Transfer in a Flash

My how far we’ve come. I have vivid memories of the days when transferring files between computers was referred to as using the “sneaker net”, and 5-1/4" 44MB SyQuest Disks were a big deal because they were better than hauling around 32 3-1/2" floppies. When the 88MB version came out, we were in heaven. The slow and somewhat unreliable 100MB Zip disk by Iomega was the next big thing that eventually put Iomega out of the removable media market. Today we have solid-state, no moving parts flash memory and life is better because of it.

The USB “Thumb” drive was shear genius from the onset. Exquisitely tiny and universally compatible, they have quickly become the defacto standard for read/write data storage. But not all drives are created equal, as I've recently learned.

I’ve been using 4GB drives from a well-known, third party brand for quite some time now, with no problems whatsoever. Until one went bad on me and I replaced it with an 8GB version that was slow as a dog. Now fully entrenched in this new techology, SanDisk is about to become my Goto brand.

I’ve been using their SD cards for quite some time now, so it seems natural to transition to them for USB drives. I recently purchased an 8GB Cruzer Glide and it’s smaller, FOUR TIMES faster than the other brand, and consumes so little power I can mount it using my keyboard’s USB port!

These come in many different capacities, and there are advantages to each. Smaller drives are faster, and if one does go bad, there's less data to lose. These are great for transferring data between devices, for temporary storage, and for backup. What they’re not good for is permanent data archiving, as their circuitry consists not of transistors, but of tiny capacitors, which have a tendency to break down over time. So, the optical disk as we now know it (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, BD-R and BD-RE) will be around for quite some time.