Angry Bird USB Drives

USB 3.0 has been slowly making it’s way into the retail space.  When you have a new entry from Sony for such a technology I believe it’s safe to say the title wave is about to start.

Enter the USB 3.0 Sony Micro Vault flashdrive.  The Micro Vault can transfer speeds at 120MB/s for reading and 90MB/s for writing.  Now that is fast!  Connecting this same device to USB 2.0 and you can expect around 40MB/s read speeds.

The USB 3.0 Sony Micro Vault is made of brushed aluminum case, pop-tail for expanding and contracting the USB connector along with LED to show status light during activity.

You can expect this product to hit the retail market by February 1, 2012.

Transcend and Taiwan’s ITRI are doing a joint venture design on an ultra slim 2TB USB flashdrive.  The “Thin Card” was shown at the Display Taiwan convention.  Not sure why the release was at a flat screen convention, but I guess a moot point.

Nothing official from either company in regards to specs or a simple introduction, nor does the high-capacity USB 3.0 stick appear on Display Taiwan’s trade show website.  So adding this all up, it could be nothing more then a USB case and a trade show hottie giving out false information.

If you watch the video [here] you can hear the girl say things like “this could be a 2TB drive” well no sh!t I could pull out any sized drive and claim it “could be 2TB” and follow up with a release date of March 2015.

However, lets keep a positive attitude about this and hope a 2TB drive isn’t too far off.

Several years ago the concept of a 2GB luggage tag would be out of the questions.  A 2GB drive was about $15 and for that reason, most everyone would consider it too expensive.

Today however, with a 2GB flash drive less than $5.00 it makes plenty of sense to use a flash drive to store your contact information via USB.  Sure, you still write your name, address and phone number on the label above, but you can now include additional information.  Travel itinerary, medical information and 2nd contact information.

Now, if you want the luggage tag looking USB with label area, it will cost you the full price of $30, but I’d rather take an old USB or a new $5.00 and create my own.  Wouldn’t be that hard with some creative material like duct tape.

USB luggage tage webpage.

Not everyone keeps their flash drive on a key-chain or in their pocket.  For many, using a ultra slim USB flashdrive and sticking it into your wallet is your form of portability.  For those who do this, read on for a good DIY to insure the stick doesn’t get lost.

First off, if you are using something like the Kingmax Super Stick, the drive is so small you’re more likely to lose it pulling keys out of your pocket then forgetting in the computer USB port.  For this reason, the USB wallet is a DIY project to stitch the drive into your wallet.

You’ll need:

• wallet
• tiny USB flash drive
• piece of Velcro
• thread, needle and a thimble

In addition, this method of storing your drive will provide extra protection from the slim stick getting damaged.

In short, you’re going to use the lanyard loop of the stick and some thread to stitch it a piece of Velcro which is then put into the wallet.  This design allows the drive to be some-what permanent, yet you can pull it out completely when needed.

If you have a geeky love one, the following NES USB storage cartridges might stike that cord to make a perfect Valentine gift.  Etsy dealer 8BitMemory is doing a fantastic job of  mod jobs for NES hard drives like the Zelda cartridge below:

Some live, eat and sleep SuperMario, or at least did when they where younger will enjoy this small USB flash drive cartridge:

Or for the hard cord geek who needs a boat load of extra storage you can pull out all the stops for this 1TB hard drive,

It’s clear USB 3.0 is coming.  It’s an unstoppable train which is building momentum with each new day and each new product launch.  Millions of PC and peripherals will ship this year with the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed bus interface.  With that said, it’s no wonder the timing of the Nexcopy SuperSpeed USB duplicator couldn’t be at a better moment.  Now it’s possible for users to manage these new peripherals without using legacy 2.0 products.

The SSUSB160PC is a 16 target USB duplicator which works off the USB 3.0 technology.  What you need to remember is that a USB 2.0 stick won’t jump to the 3.0 speed just because it’s a new interface.  Fortunately, the 3.0 system will easily handle 3.0 hard drives, which seem to be the most prevalent in the market, as well as 3.0 flash drives which are just starting to show as mainstream.

The SSUSB160PC is a slick looking product with a light weight aluminum body making it ideal for on-site duplication and data loading.  The USB duplicator has a built in 120 watt power supply and will copy at your devices maximum transfer rate.  For some ideas, it’s reported by Nexcopy that 32GBs of data can copy in about 6 minutes.

We’ve reported on other products from Nexcopy – maybe it time I request an evaluation unit…some glamor shots after the jump…