128GB USB Key for $80

At Staples for $79.99 + tax. They were marked $120, marked down to $100 ... but when I told the manager the Staples website had them for $80, he honored that price.

I have normal backup external drives, but had 4-32GB keys for carrying stuff around. This one key replaces my 4. Just downloaded 92GB of stuff - 2.0 speed took awhile, but I've got a difference-only software that will make it a lot faster after the initial load.

Link?

http://www.staples.com …-Black-Red/product_645146

That's quite a deal. I remember when I bought my first 1GB flash drive for $75.

Yah, 128GB is as much as a SSD !

USB 2.0 though...

The first USB key I ever bought was $80. It was 128 MEGS!!!!!

Out of stock...

It nice to have 128GB of data on your keyring, but I would hate to misplace or lose it.

I don't have any suitable US zip code for looking at the link.

But one important thing to consider when looking at really large USB thumb drives is their transfer speeds.

Don't look at USB 2.0. That is not the limiting factor. USB 2.0 can manage close to 40MB/s.

But many USB thumb drives may manage 12 MB/s read spead and 4MB/s or maybe even 1MB/s write speed.

At 4MB/s write speed, it takes 20 minutes to write 4GB so more than 10 hours to fill a 128 GB drive.

There are even a number of USB 3.0 thumb drives that have both read and write speeds way slower than what a USB 2.0 HDD can manage. So the USB 3.0 label just ends up being a trick to fool customers into thinking about speed.

Another thing to consider is what file system to use. FAT-32 supports max 4GB files, so it isn't even possible to transfer a couple of DVD movies. And M$ don't want you to format a removable media with NTFS.

Loading my ~90GB took about 4 hours - that figures to be a little over 6MB/s. The thing is, with a difference clone from here on, 6MB/s should be just fine. If I ever have to totally upload it, I won't care about time - only about accuracy.

bubbygator wrote in post #15173386
Loading my ~90GB took about 4 hours - that figures to be a little over 6MB/s. The thing is, with a difference clone from here on, 6MB/s should be just fine. If I ever have to totally upload it, I won't care about time - only about accuracy.

It's just a question of being aware of this parameter, since it affects how you can use the thumb drive.

My 64Gb USB3.0 Patriot Supersonic Magnum writes at 170MB/s but it was the same price (slightly more) as this 128Gb one. Worth it I think for that speed.