Technology fashion continues to hit the USB flash scene. PQI introduces this very girly pink UFD with brushed metal enclosure. Of course dull grey for the guys – not that we’d want something else.
PQI coins the phrase “Intelligent Drive i810” and after reviewing their press release – nothing intelligent about it. It’s a flash drive. I can surmise “intelligent” is referenced to the chick term for smart-n-sexy. I don’t think so.
Available from 512MB to 2GBs go grab yourself some chick-tech-bling from PQI.
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So here we go again. Another industrial grade USB flash drive, this time from STEC. Yes it’s tough, yes the STEC will withstand shock, both physical and electric, and includes STEC proprietary flash memory controller. This built-I ECC engine can detect up to 5-byte errors and correct up to 4-byte errors and with advanced write algorithms to guarantee 2 million write/erase cycles. Not sure how they are doing that as I’ve reported before on the life cycle of a flash drive which is based more off the flash memory type not the algorithms used during the write process. None-the-less, we’ll drink their juice for now.
The STEC industrial grade UFD withstands the NEBS Level 3 compliance and passed ESD testing for 8kV and 15kV air. If you don’t know what all that means, well neither do I. With some quick Google searches we have:
NEBS Level 3 – Network Equipment Building System and level 3 means the product meets toughest requirements for fire, vibration and airflow. After reading the spec if you simply threw the UFD across the room onto your stove for 5 seconds and it survives, chances are you’ll pass the Level 3 NEBS test. Wiki NEBS
ESD 8kV & 15kV – Electrostatic Discharge of solid state electronics. A spark is triggered at 30KV so obviously the STEC wont withstand that, but surviving either 8kV or 15kV is above average. Wiki ESD
So it’s clear if you are in the need of an industrial grade UFD for specific applications the STEC key drives are worth a closer look.
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Yesterday Lexar announced their full line of USB flash drives are Windows Vista Readyboost compliant. I’m starting to believe that being Readyboost compliant should be a standard for any flash drive. Then again, the specification from Windows is very general that any additional flash memory can be flagged for use with Readyboost.
None the less, welcome Lexar; welcome. If you’re interested in seeing what kind of boost Readyboost gives, check out the video.
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Today SanDisk announced their largest Memory Stick Micro card the M2. At convenient 4GBs it’s the largest flash memory card for any mobile phone. The M2 was designed, in partnership, with Sony and their line of Ericcson mobile phones.
Norm Frentz, director of marketing believes, “this is the threshold at which mobile phones provide enough capacity to become the user’s all-in-one portable music player, camcorder, photo album and video player.â€
And I for one believe him. At 4GBs you can do just about anything and carry just about anything you could imagine.
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CNET posted a fun little tutorial on how to convert a floppy disk into a USB flash drive. Not that it would matter, but the USB connection doesn’t read off the floppy disk, we’re just talking case modification.
You can get the thin USB flash drive from Amazon to do this mod yourself.
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RiDATA introduces their Yego flash drive, the name is a twist on Lego as the Yego lets you connect multiple flash drives, creating a mini-hub environment. And if you haven’t done the math already the “Y” in Yego is derived from the fact that…well, just look at the picture.
What GetUSB.info is most interested about is what kind of transfer rates can you expect from the additional drives plugged into the “Y” connectors. We’ve put one on order and will report back. Available from 128MBs to 4GBs.
Revo put some sex drive into their USB flash. Turning the tables, Revo incorporates a collection of sexy pictures as your encryption technology. Simply place these erotic pictures in correct order and…your IN. Not only does this make security fun for the owner, but equally as fun for the hacker.
The Victorinox Swiss Army USB Knife is one of the most popular flash drives with a touch of novelty. This week at CeBIT, the famous pocket knife maker cleaned house of Asian exhibitors pushing knock-off look-a-likes. It’s reported that 7 booths got a visit from the German police, some where closed completely.
I reviewed a Victorinox Swiss USB Knife a while back and must say they are made of quality and nothing would be more frustrating then spending your hard earned cash on a knock-off.
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With spring just around the corner it’s a great time to get some digital gear for summer. Nothing would fit that ticket better then a USB SurfDrive. Obviously you couldn’t hang-ten with this board, unless you where a USB Star Wars Pez but a great Easter basket stuffer for your little one. USB SurfDrives are available in sizes from 256MB to 1GB with free shipping. Who said USB novelty items are worthless?
OCZ Technology ups the ante for UFDs with their Rally 2 with Firewire connectivity. Although USB is king for connectivity it never hurts to have options, especially when USB ports disappear so quickly with keyboards, speakers and now monitors.
The Rally 2 flash drive comes with two Firewire version, a small 4pin version and larger 6 pin version. As Dave White from Mobile Magazine admits, the Rally 2 could be the answer to what could be a common problem – lack of USB ports.
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So here’s a poor mans USB hack to secure your network from unscrupulous characters downloading company secrets via USB.
In Windows XP SP2 and Vista you can disable writing to USB devices altogether by implementing a simple registry hack.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\StorageDevicePolicies] “WriteProtectâ€=dword:00000001
**Note: I inserted a break after …Set\< br>Control… to fit into post page.
Once done, reboot and you’re set. Make sure others don’t have Administrative rights, otherwise they could easily set things back. Here is the Vista error message upon copy attempt:
There is an auto executable download available to disable writing to USB drives without searching for the registry area yourself. If interested in this USB hack, then jump over to How-To-Geek and snag it.
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One year ago, almost to the day, IOCell introduced the self proclaimed “World’s largest capacity flash drive” at the CeBIT 2006 show. Today, you can find 16GB flash drives from Transcend, US Modular and Pretec, so why is the Buffalo 16GB announcement of interest? Well, it uses Silicon HDD Technology.
Silicon hard drives are different then normal hard drives in that no magnetic discs are present, rather the data is stored in silicon memory. How the silicon (HDD) hard drive works is by
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