[SOLIDAge]

I'm looking for something small, for my keychain, thats USB that i can bring between macs, and possibly PCs, that nots to expensive, i'm looking for something reliable and good, thats under $80 and has a size of 128 megs, any suggestions? thanks!

[ender2002]

http://www.diskonkey.com/prod_dokpro.asp

i was thinking of getting myself one of these. the only problem is finding where to buy one.

[Cellery]

I use a SanDisk USB 2.0 Cruzer Mini, it holds 256MB, 249 after formatting, and works great for bringing files between work and home and PCs and Macs. Write speeds are really fast with USB 2 computers, and it goes at about 500K/sec on a regular USB 1.1 connection. MSRP is $79.99 for the 256MB model and $59.99 for the 128MB model, though you can find them cheaper all the time. I picked up the 256MB model for $50 at Best Buy a couple of weeks ago.


http://www.sandisk.com/consumer/cruzermini.asp

[chabig]

I bought my first keychain drive last week--a Sandisk 256MB Cruzer mini-USB 2 drive for $45 at MicroCenter.

I agree with Cellery that this is a very nice device. It's small, inexpensive, fast, and has lots of capacity for a very nice price. A particularly nice feature is the form factor--it's thin, so that I can plug it into one of my Powerbook's USB ports and still use the adjoining port. Some of the drives, like Lexar's, are cute but too wide to allow you to use both ports at the same time.

I don't think MicroCenter is still selling these for $45, but their normal price of $55 isn't bad either.

Chris

[fmalloy]

The 256MB Cruzer Mini does *not* work with my PowerBook Ti G4/500 running 10.3.2. The first insert after a boot sometimes works, but ejecting it and putting it back in results in:

Mar 7 18:46:33 localhost kernel: USBF: 288.968 AppleUSBOHCI[0x11a1000]::MakeDevice error setting address. err=0xe00002ed device=0x11f8b00 - releasing device

and the device does not appear. It doesn't even show up in the USB devices.

The fact that sometimes it does work and you can copy files to it, etc. shows that there's some flaky issue with the OS USB support.

I think Apple has a problem supporting USB flash drives, and I hope they fix it soon.

Frank

[eaglesfan]

I'd go for this one:

http://www.interealm.com/tikimac/pro...items/ddd.html

or maybe even this:

http://www.dynamism.com/iduck/index.shtml

Who want a boring old Keydrive??

[-Q-]

I also have a SanDisk Cruzer 256 that works great with my PowerBook, G5 and Windows 2000 PC. I use it all the time to transfer files between the three machines. Not to make light of fmalloy's obvious difficulty, but I've had no trouble with any of the machines mounting the flash drive and copying files.

[ae77]

those duckies are hilarious glow in the dark too!

Originally posted by eaglesfan:
I'd go for this one:

http://www.interealm.com/tikimac/pro...items/ddd.html

or maybe even this:

http://www.dynamism.com/iduck/index.shtml

Who want a boring old Keydrive??

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by -Q-:
I also have a SanDisk Cruzer 256 that works great with my PowerBook, G5 and Windows 2000 PC. I use it all the time to transfer files between the three machines. Not to make light of fmalloy's obvious difficulty, but I've had no trouble with any of the machines mounting the flash drive and copying files.

What exact PowerBook do you have, and what version of OS X are you using?

I really want this thing to work.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
What exact PowerBook do you have, and what version of OS X are you using?

I really want this thing to work.

PowerBook G4 867 (combo drive) with 10.3.2.

Added 512 MB RAM to the 256 it came with. Otherwise, nothing special.

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by -Q-:
PowerBook G4 867 (combo drive) with 10.3.2.

Added 512 MB RAM to the 256 it came with. Otherwise, nothing special.

Hmmmm...

I have a Titanium G4/500 (1st generation) with USB1.1. Does your 867 combo have USB2.0? Perhaps it's just an issue with USB1.1 support.

I am also running 10.3.2.

Wonder if it's hardware specific. I also have a 17" iMac. I'll try the Cruzer on that.

I know others are having problems with Cruzer Mini on PBs, so it's not just me.

Just wish I could get this thing working. Bought it yesterday, works great on my work Windoze laptop

[-Q-]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
Hmmmm...

I have a Titanium G4/500 (1st generation) with USB1.1. Does your 867 combo have USB2.0? Perhaps it's just an issue with USB1.1 support.

No, this only has 1.1. I don't think 2.0 ports were introduced until the Aluminum PBs. IT's really odd. I can't think of why it wouldn't work unless the media is defective? But you say it works fine on the Windows machine, so I'm really confused as to what the reason could be. Have you tried re-formatting it and see what happens?

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by -Q-:
No, this only has 1.1. I don't think 2.0 ports were introduced until the Aluminum PBs. IT's really odd. I can't think of why it wouldn't work unless the media is defective? But you say it works fine on the Windows machine, so I'm really confused as to what the reason could be. Have you tried re-formatting it and see what happens?

I think that may be it!

I was able to get it to read in my iMac, so I reformatted it for MS-DOS using Disk Utility (I used DOS format so I can transfer files at work) and I've just been able to successfully unplug/insert it three times in a row in the TiBook!

I'll do some more testing to confirm for sure, but it looks like the reformat on the Mac did it!

Frank

[-Q-]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
I'll do some more testing to confirm for sure, but it looks like the reformat on the Mac did it!

Frank

Excellent!

I may pay off this karmic debt sooner than I thought.

[mdc]

Originally posted by eaglesfan:
I'd go for this one:

http://www.dynamism.com/iduck/index.shtml

Who want a boring old Keydrive??

okay, i want one of those. but $149 for a 256mb! o.O
the fact that they light up

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by mdc:
okay, i want one of those. but $149 for a 256mb! o.O
the fact that they light up

The SanDisk Cruzer Mini 256MB was $49 at Costco, and I had a $10 off coupon

My suggestion is to reformat the thing on the Mac using Disk Utility when you get it. That made it work properly in my PowerBook.

[paully dub]

Originally posted by fmalloy:
The SanDisk Cruzer Mini 256MB was $49 at Costco, and I had a $10 off coupon

My suggestion is to reformat the thing on the Mac using Disk Utility when you get it. That made it work properly in my PowerBook.

I had to do the same with mine as well. Just be EXTRA carefule to check the key device and not your HD!

Otherwise works like a charm.

[fmalloy]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Excellent!

I may pay off this karmic debt sooner than I thought.

Or, maybe not.

I reported that reformatting fixed the issue. However, after a few iterations of going to a PC, copying data, and going back to the PowerBook, it stopped mounting the device again. Light flashes a couple of times, no mount, no message in the console, USB Prober shows no USB devices attached. Moved it back over to my iMac, mounts just fine. So, something about certain PowerBooks are an issue. I reformatted it on the iMac again, and it mounted on the PowerBook again no problem.

So, something is corrupting something on the Cruzer so that the PowerBook won't mount it. The iMac (running same OS) seems to not have any issue. What's weird is that the Cruzer doesn't even show up in the USB devices. I would expect that the PB would at least *see* it if it can't mount it.

I'm going to experiment further to see if the PC is doing something. I'll try to restrict data between the iMac and PB to see if it flakes out again. If so, I'll restrict it to a MacOS format only.

I hate being an Apple OS product tester. I don't even get paid for it.

Frank