Flash Drives Go To Work 264
feminazi writes "USB drive capacity is outpacing Moore's Law by doubling every year, evolving from tchotchkes to devices capable of addressing corporate needs ranging from mobile computing platforms to files stores with encryption and biometrics protection. SanDisk and M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers launched a thumb drive with an intelligent U3 chip that can store and launch applications. Lexar's premium JumpDrive Lightning thumb drive has the fastest data-transfer rates at 18MB/sec write and 24MB/sec read. And some are strong on the outside, too. SanDisk touts a drive built to withstand 2,000 lbs. of pressure. Computerworld tested that claim by repeatedly driving a Volkswagen Beetle over the ruggedized thumb drive. While the drive's body came away with a few scratches, there were no dents, and not a single lost file."
Beetle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Beetle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Beetle (Score:5, Informative)
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First, its not a joke, its an observation.
Second, the grammar is scrambled, yielding a mixed up Metaphor. We know what he was trying to say, he just did a really bad job of saying it. Dubyaspeak [google.com]
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I guess you're saying we mean what he knows.
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While we're nitpicking, metaphors are not proper nouns.
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Re:Beetle (Score:5, Informative)
Given a rough guess of 30,000 thumb drives, at 4GB per, on an 8 hour drive, you get 4GB/sec, give or take a GB, as the bandwith of a Beetle full of thumb drives.
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Especially if you use the Boeing 737 version of old saying.
Re:Beetle (Score:5, Funny)
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It's still often faster in the real world (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds kinda silly, but really works out better overall. It's cheaper too, than it would cost to get the university to buy more bandwidth and dedicate it specially to them.
Encryption? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why tapes keep falling off the back of a truck and get lost every now and then. Bummer if there's credit card records on those tapes. That's why hardware encryption is getting a lot o
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I think that truecrypt [truecrypt.org] does a very good job at this.
I haven't used it all that much (ya know, while thumbdrives are easy to lose, I don't really care if someone sees how bad my assignments for the Operating Systems class really are), but I think it does a pretty decent job even in different environments.
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But you obvioudly workes it out. You appear to have perplexes your other redponsentd do far though.
KFG
Re:Beetle (Score:5, Funny)
Not bad. But it's nothing compared to what you get if you start by feeding a bunch of thumbdrives to a bunch of in order to get 'em past the security checkpoint, and fill a 777 with 'em. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a muthafuckin' 777 full of muchta*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
(That's IT! I have HAD IT with these MUTHAFUCKIN' memes on this MUTHAFUCKIN' website!
Hmmmm .... (Score:5, Funny)
Thats a great idea for a movie!
ThumbDrives On a Plane!
That's what I'm talking about!
Re:Beetle (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA:
The article doesn't go on to mention how they then put the thumb drive in the employees car, set the car on fire and pushed it over a cliff. Miraculously, the thumb drive survived! Boy, was that guy pissed when he found out what they did to his car...
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1 size and capacity of the drives
2 useable volume of said beetle (rip seats out? boxes/bags the drives are in)
3 current sanity/skill level of driver (adjust for injested chemicals/aural enhancements)
Rip the beetle down to the shell and bag the drives , load the driver, put some good rock and roll in the tape deck and you could get some massive bandwidth
Comdex 2000 (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like they'll do even more.
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Damn Small Linux and CPXmini (a slick little Kanotix remaster) run fine from USB sticks. If you have the space, you can install a full distro and keep a storage partition for files you wish to save.
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And yet most computers still ship with a single, useless extra cost item. The floppy drive.
Apple stopped shipping floppy drives in 1999 and everyone called them crazy. I think they saw the emergence of CF and digital memory cards for cameras and hoped those plus a network connection would obviate the need for a floppy drive. I also happen to think they killed the floppy too soon, but it was a bold step.
Standard Flash Drive Durability (Score:5, Interesting)
Swiss Army Thumbdrive (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice feature, but that isn't the weak point (Score:2)
If they could make the link between the USB adapter and the drive itself a little more robust,
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I plugged it in and it still worked just fine.
A few years back the BBC tested a variety of memory cards by dunking them in Cola, nailing them to a tree and even handing them to a six year old boy with instructions to d [bbc.co.uk]
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I want one with GPS and a transmitter so i can track it's whereabouts
Sandisk Cruiser Titanium (Score:5, Informative)
We purchased 3 of them for our IT staff in the local office. All 3 failed within 3 months of ordering, and 2 of the replacements failed after that (within a month of replacement). We had them switched out for some Cruzer Micro and Minis, and have been fine ever since (several months now).
My theory is the metal on the case. While strong, I think the metal in the case conducts static and shorts into the flash chips or USB controller inside. I don't even know if titanium conducts or not, and Sandisk denies there is a widespread issue with these drives, but go read the amazon.com forums on this product and you will be scared off.
It's a shame. They are a wonderful design, no caps to loose and the drive slides inside the case to protect the USB connector. But it's useless if you can't trust it. One of mine worked one second when I had it plugged into a laptop, then I dismounted it, walked 10 ft to my computer, plugged it in and it was DOA. I think it may have been the static from the carpet, I had it hanging around my neck. You're better off with a plastic one and just back it up periodically to protect against loss or damage.
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Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressure (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu (Score:2)
so if i ride over something on my bike (50psi in the tyres) I'll be exerting more pressure ?
GP is correct (Score:5, Informative)
If a unicycle tire is at 50 psi with 100 lbs on it then there has to be 2 square inches touching the road, assuming the tire is flexible. A rigid tire could have less area in contact, but tires are flexible.
If you still don't understand, try googling or take a look at how to weigh a car by measuring surface area here [exploratorium.edu]
Oh, and a 100 lb woman in stiletto heels can exert over 1000 psi if she balances on her heel. We're talking about weight per unit area. Even though it is counterintuitive, you will exert more force per unit area on your bike than a bigrig full of i-beams, assuming you have higher pressure tires.
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Wasn't that covered in chapter 12 of Sex Tips from a Dominatrix [amazon.com]? I think the term "thumb drive" has a completely different meaning in that industry, too.
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu (Score:2, Informative)
Once again it's the attack of bad science! Not to mention a lack of regard for units.... Assuming all four wheels carry the same load (bad assumption) and the point of application of the load on the tire is constrained to a point (another horrible assumption), the pressure on the top face of the micro drive would be .25 * W_car (lbs) / A_disk (in^2). Note that this completely ignores St. Venant's principle, which is a nifty thing that explains how shear and normal stress is distributed along any given me
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magic BS numbers! (Score:2)
You can test it by driving a car up on top of your toes... 30psi should be a piece of cake if your statement is correct.
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu (Score:3, Interesting)
No kidding. I once saw a puppy get rolled over by a jeep/SUV thing.
This pup was, unbeknowst to me, following me down the road. By the time I heard it, we were a considerable distance from its home. So I began to walk back, as the pup would not take a hint. After a few metres, I heard the sound of the oncoming jeep. So did the pup. He wasn't too bright, and, spooked and leashless, panicked and
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's a JETTA... Why didn't you just pick the little thing up, and toss it around a little?
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There's a large difference in teh weight on the front tires vs the weight on the rear tires of a front engine/front wheel drive vehicle. Assuming you care, you could find an old car magazine or road test, and itt'll list the weight balance, as well as the weight of the car. Being run over by the back wheels of a 80's econo-box
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu (Score:2)
Or something to that effect...
2000 lbs of pressure? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Farva: [Annoyed] A litre o' cola.
Dimpus Burger Guy: [into mic] Litrecola? Do we sell litrecola?
Thorny: Will you just order a large, Farva?
Farva: I don't want a large farva. I want a goddamn litre o' cola!
Dimpus Burger Guy: [to Farva] I don't know what that is!
Farva: [slowly starts shouting] Litre is French for...
[grabs burger kid by shirt]
Farva:
Heart supertroopers [imdb.com]
Oh my god (Score:2)
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I hated the U3 Cruzer until I got rid of the U3. (Score:2, Insightful)
U3 or portableApps.com (Score:3, Informative)
Bless PortableApps.com [i-bless.com]
pain in the rear (Score:4, Informative)
PSI, pounds, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
2,000 lbs. of pressure
2,000 lbs is not a pressure; there's no area. It's weight. This is basic high school physics...
Computerworld tested that claim by repeatedly driving a Volkswagen Beetle over the ruggedized thumb drive. While the drive's body came away with a few scratches, there were no dents, and not a single lost file."
A Neu VW beetle weighs about 3000lb. If the entire force applied against the road by one tire was applied to the device (for example, by putting a piece of thick metal on either side of the device and then running the car over the plate of metal), that's only 750LB. This is basic grade school math (3000/4.)
I'd guess your average thumb drive has perhaps 1-2 square inches of surface area. The amount of pressure between tire and road is exactly equal to the inflation pressure of the tire, which is often around 30-35 PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch.) So the thumb drive never had more than 60-70lb put on it...
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a) Weight in a vehicle is not evenly distributed. The actual weight on the front-axle and rear-axle will differ depending on, for example, where the engine is located.
b) Again, by weight, you're getting more than 60-70lbs. Otherwise a smaller object would be able to hold the car up easier...
c) The inflation pressure of a tire, balloon, etc, is the pressure of air inside the tire. More air, more pressure as you're cramming more molecules into a smaller
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Which is correct. A tire is a spring. When a car drives over something small all the something feels is the force required to depress the spring, because the opposing force is all it is applying to the tire. The weight of the car is actually borne by the rest of the contact patch of the tire with the ground, because the tire deforms around the something.
Softer tire, less force on the drive, which can never be more than the spring rate of
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I just went out to the 4 door Accord in the parking lot. I was able to lift the front (heaviest) corner by about an inch with only three fingers.
Because. .
The
Real world Lexar Jumpdrive numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Timing cached reads: 2324 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1161.93 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 76 MB in 3.01 seconds = 25.26 MB/sec
Fast little thing
Ask for other benchmarks and I will run them.
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Random reads will take the same amount of time because it's flash memory and the drive doesn't have to seek. Here's a script to verify. I put sdX instead of sdb so that it wouldn't work for anyone who copied and pasted directly.
RUNS=25
MEGS=10
DEV=/dev/sdX #your USB device
time for i in $(seq $RUNS) ; do
offset=$(($RAN
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'Secure encryption technique' not available ? (Score:2)
Well, the news about encryption hasn't reached the Dutch military yet. They just managed to lose their THIRD unencrypted memory stick this year - this time in Afghanistan:
Military 'forgets' another memory stick [expatica.com]
The Dutch has yet again lost a data storage device, this time at the military base in the Afghan province of Uruzgan. The commander reported a device was missing but no details have been released about the information it contained. Last month military chiefs advised their personnel not to use memo
Pressure vs. Trauma (Score:2)
God, I hate that U3 chip. (Score:5, Interesting)
And the U3 software fails on virtually every computer on campus, because the computers are locked down in such a way that one cannot install device drivers using a normal student account.
The real kicker? They're replacing all the PCs in the campus labs with ones without floppy drives. So even those poor kids with only a few hundred KB of data will have to use a flash drive, and us student assistants will have to support them.
Already, I've had to tell too many students that yes, they can access their data from home with that flash drive. No, they won't be able to use that flash drive here. Yes, I realize their assignment is due in twenty minutes. No, there's nothing I can do about it; I don't have any greater a degree of access than they do.
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Mod parent _UP_ (Score:2)
Thanks.
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Just make them aware that the U3 uninstaller will repartition the flash drive and erase all the data on it. Definitely a no-go for those "My assignment is due in 20 minutes, I need to print this now now now!!!" people. Other than that, the uninstaller seems to do exactly what you'd expect. I picked up a couple of 2 GB Sandisk Micro thumb drives from Best Buy on Wednesday since they were on sale
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Frankly, this is a good thing. Floppies are shitty. They havent improved as a consumer technology since like 1987; they're prone to failure and painfully slow. Ideally, students using your campus labs should be using something like a network drive, which has the benefit
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That's why you always use floppies in a RAID array.
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Thats not technically true. It's entirely possible to mount the drives as synchronous, so that writes are not buffered. Generally removing drives before requesting a buffer flush shouldn't be a problem unless you're copying a lot of information onto the drive. I suspect the same is true of your campus computer systems [microsoft.com]. In contrast most Linux distros I'v
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The solution is to remove the U3 software and make it a regular flash drive.
You can get an uninstaller her [mac.com]
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What's so hard about opening Gmail and emailing yourself?
2.7 GB of space accessible from anywhere. Nothing to lose, drop, break. A couple hundred KB would be almost instant to email on a college network.
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Flash drive news (Score:2, Interesting)
Does Moore's "law" even apply here? (Score:5, Interesting)
mod parent up (n/t) (Score:2)
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
For those that missed it, and need speed (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to be still relevant almost a year later. No faster models have come out from any of the major brands that I am aware of.
New File Compression Scheme (Score:5, Funny)
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No permanently attached storage (Score:2)
At least make an attempt to understand (Score:2)
idiot.
USB drive = dongle? (Score:2)
My f
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You probably have no idea how unimpressive that sounds here at
My first computer, a ZX 81, came with 2kb of main memory and stored data
and programs in a cassete tape at a 300bps rate.
My first computer with a floppy drive, an Apple II Plus, stored 127 kb in
a 5 1/4 inches floppy.
My first computer with a hard drive, an IBM PC XT compatible, had a 10 MB
Winchester.
My cell phone today (a SonyEricsson K700) has more memory than that first HD.
If you want to get rid of U3 (Score:3, Informative)
One thing this is annoying about that--they recognize that Mac and Linux users might want to get rid of U3 (their survey that asks why you are getting rid of it includes using Mac or Linux among the answers), but the software to remove U3 only runs on Windows.
It did not work under Parallels on my Mac. I had to really boot Windows to run the U3 remover.
burning out USB? (Score:4, Interesting)
If the enterprise uses flash drives more, will we end up replacing more motherboards as well?
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I guess so... Until somebody realizes that PCI USB2.0 cards are a lot cheaper than motherboards...
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My hypothesis would be static discharge. There was an issue way back when with the Palm V and its charging cradle frying ungrounded serial ports. With drives and Palms, you have frequent plugging in; given where people stash their flash drives (pockets, bags), I imagine building up a static charge is certainly possible.
A properly wired USB port should be fin
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Drive a Beetle over it? (Score:2)
Assuming 32psi in the tires, and a thumb drive size of (say) 1 inch by 3 inches, the total weight born by the thumb drive would be no more than 96 pounds.
Far from the 2000 pounds claimed.
So survived a small tire pressing on it... (Score:2)
It needs to take a lot of abuse, and getting squished by a few hundred pounds of stationary overhead pressure from a car tire doesn't qualify as a lot of abuse.
How does it hold up in the real world?
Re:Why so much of USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Point is, just about every remotely modern laptop and desktop in the world has USB ports, a redesign or different format without backwards compatability would defeat the purpose of it.
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How long in till we start to see E-SATA drives and firewire drives? Hard disks will come with flash ram on them soon likely runing at speeds that use the full SATA 300 bus.
Windows vista use of usb keys for VM sound like a bad idea when hard disks are faster and have less cpu over head. Some one should make internal SATA flash drives for that.
Is there any work being done on usb 3?
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The idea of a home server that doesn't need any computer per se is in its infancy: 160 GB HD, iTunes sharing, BitTorrent client, all self-contained [gizmodo.com] so you can set it and take your laptop with you while your home connection continues to download all your favorite Creative Commons licensed
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Firewire is both more complex on the electronics level and more expensive in licensing fees. Since the basic premise of these things is generally that they're small and cheap, USB is the more common choice. Plus, practically every machine has at least one USB port, whereas a lot of machines don't come with Firewire.
What I'd like to see next is a USB thumb drive with an RJ-45 connection with built in Wireless access point.
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You can get power over ethernet these days...
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Let people get the car they want.
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