USB Flash Memory suggestions

[Henry Spencer]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, William O'Higgins wrote:
> Flash memory is completely Linux-compatible.

Perhaps not quite.  A while ago, I ran into a Verbatim flash key that made
one particular Linux system hang during mount -- I never had a chance to
investigate further (e.g., trying it on other systems) and find out what
was going on. 

I've had no trouble with any others, though.

One possibly-interesting brand is Kingmax.  I've done some light testing
on them, with no problems; haven't used them heavily yet.  The feature of
note on them is that they have a physical write-protect switch, which is
sometimes a very useful thing. 

> If you leave the
> formatting of the media as FAT16 or FAT32 (however you buy it) then it
> will work on both Linux and Windoze.

The only Windoze snag is that *old* versions of Windoze think they need a
separate driver for each type of device -- they don't recognize USB keys
as generic storage devices -- which can be a headache.  Not a problem with
halfway-current versions.

> You can look at various web sites you can find different prices.  Canada
> Computers has pretty consistently excellent prices, but the
> Spadina/College area stores provide some of the best competition-based
> values in the city.

Canada Computers has a store on College -- south side, more or less at the
west end of the computer district.  They carry Kingmax in particular.

> USB2 is nice if you get larger media.

It's pretty universal now anyway.

> I have standardized on SD cards,
> which are reasonably priced, pretty fast, small, light and inter-operate
> with camera, MP3 player, PDA etc, but you know better what you need.

There are about three flash formats which make sense:

+ USB keys, because every modern computer has USB ports (no adapters 
needed), and they're so popular that they're cheap and roomy.

+ Compact Flash cards, the clear winner (last I looked) on capacity and
price.  They *own* the high-end camera market and feature prominently in a
lot of other areas too. 

+ SD (Secure Digital) cards, rather smaller than CF and very popular in
miniature devices like PDAs, where it's awkward to make room for a CF slot.

The assorted other flash-card formats are all also-rans, to my thinking. 
Avoid locking yourself in by buying devices which use them.

(If you want a write-protect switch...  Some, but by no means all, USB
keys have them.  One or two brands of CF cards used to have them, but
apparently none in current production do.  All SD cards do, it's part of
the specs for that format.)

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org


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