Super Flash Drives

[stratman]

Well they're finally coming of age, the Flash Drive that is. At this year's CES, Panasonic anounced a 32GB Flash Drive by summer and 64GB by winter. Well Corsair beat them to the punch, they just released their 32 GB USB Flash Drives, they come in two flavors, The Flash Survivor and Flash Voyager. The Survivor comes wrapped in an aluminum case that is shock-proof and water proof down to 200 meters, the Voyager is coated in rubber and is fairly sturdy in it's own right, they both feature 256-bit AES encryption and are bootable. The Voyager retails in at $230.00 and the Survivor at $250.00, they both have a 10 year manufacturer's warranty and early adopters are reporting speeds of 21 MB/sec read and 7 MB/sec write.

Can this be the future of HD movies?

 

[MUDSHARK]

I don't know but I use my Tone 8 GB USB all the time between home office and the office as well as at clients. The $80.00 sure beats unzipping files and dealing with the company security permissions.

 

[stratman]

I don't know but I use my Tone 8 GB USB all the time between home office and the office as well as at clients. The $80.00 sure beats unzipping files and dealing with the company security permissions.

32GB and possibly 64 GB by year's end! This can be the replacement for optical media. To be fair Panny said its going to be a 32 GB SD card, with 64 GB by year's end.

 

[10010011]

32GB and possibly 64 GB by year's end! This can be the replacement for optical media. To be fair Panny said its going to be a 32 GB SD card, with 64 GB by year's end.

I am not so sure about a replacement for optical media. Flash memory does have a finite number of read/write cycles before it starts to degrade.

Granted it's a large number, typically 1,000,000 cycles for NAND and 100,000 cycles for NOR.

But optical media, specially pressed production types, don't have that issue.

 

[sparky77]

if you think that rewritable optical media is gonna outlast flash drives I would do some research on that subject, theoretically cdrw's can be rewriten 1,000s of times, and I've already worn out about a dozen maxell cdrs. Theres no obvious scratches on them but they fail data verification by 30% their capacity, good thing their cheep, toss it out and grab a new one. However, flash drives haven't quite been around long enough to truly test their durability, but so far have shown a far superiority to optical media in the fact that they are much more stable at higher temerature levels than the organic dyes used in rw discs. Sorry, don't have a lot of experience with the dvd rw media, but it does use the same organic based dyes as the cd counterparts, and with narrower bit spacing are likely to be more succectable failed dye layers.

 

[MDS]

A 32 or 64 GB flash drive would be amazing but I'd hardly use its capacity. I got a 512 MB flash drive as a gift for giving a presentation to the interns and I really only use it as a quick way to bring a handful of files to somebody that doesn't have a fast internet connection.

1 and 2 GB drives have fallen in price to around $20 and that is usually sufficient storage for the kinds of things I would use it for.

 

[10010011]

cdrw's... cdrs... dyes used in rw discs... dvd rw media... organic based dyes..dye layers.

I don't recall saying anything about R or RW type media.

But optical media, specially pressed production types, don't have that issue.

Believe me I have nothing against flash drives, hell I own a ton of them. I bought an MP3 player back when it cost $350 for a player with a 32Meg card. I played the hell out of that thing and used the card in my camera. That card bit the dust in about four years. I am sure it was the older NOR type flash memory

 

[aberkowitz]

The Survivor comes wrapped in an aluminum case that is shock-proof and water proof down to 200 meters

Waterproof to 200 meters... under what circumstances would that even be necessary??? For that matter, how would they even go about proving that the thing was waterproof to 200 meters- did they drop it from a boat in the atlantic?

There are maybe a few thousand people on the planet who have ever been that deep in the water (the world record is 308 meters). They could have made the thing waterproof to 30 feet and it would have sufficed!

I don't even know if my SCUBA dive computer works at 200 meters- and I'm not coming close to finding out anytime soon!

 

[stratman]

Waterproof to 200 meters... under what circumstances would that even be necessary??? For that matter, how would they even go about proving that the thing was waterproof to 200 meters- did they drop it from a boat in the atlantic?

There are maybe a few thousand people on the planet who have ever been that deep in the water (the world record is 308 meters). They could have made the thing waterproof to 30 feet and it would have sufficed!

I don't even know if my SCUBA dive computer works at 200 meters- and I'm not coming close to finding out anytime soon!

I thought the same thing! Why would you make a computer part waterproof to 200 meters? You have to admit though, it must make it tougher than a tank!

 

[masak_aer]

Waterproof to 200 meters... under what circumstances would that even be necessary??? For that matter, how would they even go about proving that the thing was waterproof to 200 meters- did they drop it from a boat in the atlantic?

There are maybe a few thousand people on the planet who have ever been that deep in the water (the world record is 308 meters). They could have made the thing waterproof to 30 feet and it would have sufficed!

I don't even know if my SCUBA dive computer works at 200 meters- and I'm not coming close to finding out anytime soon!

In case you fall off a ship during your trip along Bora-bora. You see a shark but you are not sure what kind it is, swimming on the sea-floor. You don't want to get eaten by sharks, do you? You quickly turn on your dive computer, plug in the super flash-drive and look for the pre-installed "sea creatures" encyclopedia entry in it.

 

[aberkowitz]

I thought the same thing! Why would you make a computer part waterproof to 200 meters? You have to admit though, it must make it tougher than a tank!

What I'm really curious about is how waterproof ratings actually work. If by saying an object is waterproof you mean that the introduction of water won't destroy it's mechanical ability to function, then it doesn't matter whether the object is at 5 meters or 5,000 meters.

However, water at a depth has pressure- every 10 feet represents an additional atmosphere of pressure that is placed on an object. When you dive to 10 feet, your body is exposed to twice as much pressure as when you're on the surface, your lungs are half as big, and air takes up half as much space. Every further 10 feet represents another magnitude (e.g. 20 feet = 1/3 lung size, 30 feet = 1/4 lung size, etc.). By saying this object is waterproof to 200 meters (approximately 640 feet), you're saying that it can handle pressure 640x the pressure that is placed on it at sea level and have the device still work. This may be possible, but I have no f-ing clue how you could test it, or who decided it was important!!!

Watches have these ratings for safety reasons- they don't want a diver using a watch at a depth which would cause the watch to malfunction and potentially harm the diver. I can't imagine why a flash drive would ever be 200 meters below water!

 

[avaserfi]

With flashcards this large it is more than likely they will make their way into camcorders - perhaps even ones capable of going underwater. This could be the reason for such a rating - so that the divers would not have to worry about their media being lost in case there is an accident or something.

I don't know too much about it, but that is just a idea.