Re: [PLUG] "Pen Drive" recommendations?

[Paul.L.Snyder@gsk.com]

On 04-Jun-2003, "William H. Magill" <magill@mcgillsociety.org> wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at 10:28  PM, eric@lucii.org wrote:
>> I'm considering buying a "pen drive" (USB - Flash Memory -
>> portable) to transport some small files around (including my
>> gpg key ring(s)).
>>
>> I run (on various computers), RH 9, SuSE 7.3 and 8.0, and
>> they all seem to support USB just fine.  Anybody have any
>> recommendations +/- ?   Horror stories?  Success stories?
>
> I believe that the biggest danger from the "flash" drives is the fact
> that they (still) have a very finite number of write cycles.
[...]
> At any rate, I've been told that Flash Memory simply "Fails" when it
> "expires." No warnings and no recovery. Which is to say, using that for
> your key ring might be a dangerous thing to do in the longer term.
> Other than that, they seem to work pretty well, if "slow."

I'd take a look at one of the USB SD/MMC readers.  If the reader simply
acts as a USB storage device, you shouldn't need Linux SD drivers.
They're about the same size as the disk-on-keys that I've seen.  You'd
then be able to use multiple media, share with a PDA (many new PDAs now
come with an SD slot), upgrade media without throwing away your entire
investment, and so on.

Here's one for $15: http://zxpro.com/CardReaders/MMCKey.htm - Google
will turn up others.  (Unrelated, but here's an SD reader you use in
floppy drive - cool, but probably very slow.)  A 128 MB MMC or SD card
is around $50.  A 256 MB SD is around $80, 512 MB is over $250, and 1GB
should be out RSN.

Just make sure the reader acts as a standard USB mass storage device.

HTH,
pls


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