Zip drive vs Flash Mem sticks USB, which way?

[OPUS1]

I do CAD work.
Any good reason for going with a Zip drive vs the new flash drives?
I need a good solution to transport stuff from one rig to another. Yes the zips are faster, but the flash USb's are smaller and don't need "floppies"

 

[unhappy_mage]

flash drives wear out after a certain number of r/w cycles, which means that if you copy stuff over every day then it might wear out (and stop working) in a year or so. otoh, the limit is about 100k writes iirc, so that might not be a problem. by "one rig to another", do you mean locally? NETWORK! try out some vpn software if it's work -> home, or get a cat5/6 patch cable and go for it. heck, pgp them and email them to yourself. the only problem I can see is if they are like 50mb each and you're on dialup if so i feel your pain... other than that, i'd probably go for the zip, 'cause if you lose a disk it's $7 & you still have the drives, but if you lose the usb thing it's $70. i lose things a lot.

 

[OPUS1]

I want portability
"i lose things a lot."
That is the best reason to go Zippy!
I didn't realize that the flash drives furball after a while,
Thanks

 

[stevewm]

With flash memory each bit can only be erased and re-written so many times. Manufactuers often quote 100k times with some saying up to 1,00,000 times now. When a bit reaches this point you will simply not be able to erase it. Think about this for a minute.... Say you have 1 file that is erased and re-copied to the drive everyday. If each bit lasts 100,000 write cycles you could theroetically copy your file once a day, everyday, for 273 years before those bits reached their end of life.

Another thing to consider, ALL flash memory drives have their own built in defect management. When a bit reaches the point where it cannot be erased it is marked and never used again. The result? Your available storage space decreases by 1 bit. The drive does not completely stop working nor will you get bad sectors or anything like that. The data that was in this bit can still be read, just not erased.

Personally I would go for the flash drive. More reliable and much more portable. You can get flash drives upwards of 2GB now. And a 256MB flash drive is still cheaper than a 100MB or even 250MB Zip drive.

 

[Ice Czar]

flash

 

[Mr45]

You'd be more likely to have problems with a zip, click of death for example, then to have issues with flash drives. A guy I work with accidentally washed and dried his Lexar Jump Drive while doing laundry a few months ago and still uses it on a daily basis, we're computer techs and use them to install apps, drivers and updates so they get alot of use. As for possibly loosing the drive, just keep it on your keychain, but make sure you take your keys out of you pocket come laundry day . The 128Mb drives are around $30, 256Mb about $45 and 512Mb are around $80

Another option you might consider, if you have a device that uses Secure DIgital, MMC or Sony Memory Sticks is the Lexar Jump Drive Trio I have one and use the SD cards from my camera and pda and it works great.

 

[unhappy_mage]

With flash memory each bit can only be erased and re-written so many times. Manufactuers often quote 100k times with some saying up to 1,00,000 times now. When a bit reaches this point you will simply not be able to erase it. Think about this for a minute.... Say you have 1 file that is erased and re-copied to the drive everyday. If each bit lasts 100,000 write cycles you could theroetically copy your file once a day, everyday, for 273 years before those bits reached their end of life.
...
Personally I would go for the flash drive. More reliable and much more portable. You can get flash drives upwards of 2GB now. And a 256MB flash drive is still cheaper than a 100MB or even 250MB Zip drive.

agreed, it's cheaper. i'd personally go with the flash because i'm in a different situation, i was just recommending something for him. however, as to the long long life of flash devices, i'm gonna have to disagree. certain bits are written more often than others (mft/fats) and so those die earlier. i believe windows even writes certain bits on mount of a new disk, so every time you plug it in it it loses reliability. and while manufacturers may quote 1e5 or 1e6 write cycles, they also quote 150+ years mean time between failure. i don't know about you, but I haven't had a disk last even 10 years.