Often transporting data around using Floppy disks and CDs requires you to carry them within some form of protection, be it a CD case or a disk box. The USB Drive can replace both in many instances.
The drive has a about the same dimensions as a cigarette lighter and plugs in, as the name suggests, to your standard USB port. The drive is automatically recognised by flavours of Windows that support USB -- in many cases you don't need to use the driver supplied by its manufacturer.
In other cases you will need to install the driver manually. This does limit the freedom the device is meant to provide in that you either carry the drivers for the disk containing on the USBDrive or constantly download them to each PC you intend to use it with. But once this initial process is completed the computer will automatically detect the card once it is inserted into the USB Port.
Once installed it appears to the operating system to be a removable disk drive. It behaves like a folder letting you copy, drag and delete documents to and from it wth ease. Ranging from 16M up to 1G in capacity it is useful for moving large programs and documents that won't fit on an individual floppy, or would normally need to be burned onto a CD-R.
Industry efforts to miniaturise portable storage devices have produced such things as the Secure Digital memory card, the Sony MemoryStick and the CompactFlash card. They were developed, primarily, to provide storage support for multimedia hardware such as digital cameras, PDAs and MP3 players, and other devices. These forms of data storage, despite being highly useful, are limited in that they require special interfaces for inter-connection.
The USBDrive only requires a common USB port rather than a specialised reader. It's small enough to hang around your neck or clip onto your pocket or key ring, is very light, yet durable enough to withstand a few good knocks (unlike a floppy disk, and it has much higher file capacity).
This is good for people who wish to travel light. Instead of carrying a bag with a few disks and CDs home, you could just put this in your pocket. However keep in mind that a few disks will cost you far less.
Prices for the USBDrive start at AU$99 for a 16M of storage and reach a mind-boggling AU$2365 for a 1G version. You can get a good second-hand laptop for that as USBDrive would know -- that is precisely what a 1G drive has the capacity to replace.
USBDrive
Company: USBDrive Australia
Price: AU$99.00
Distributor: USBDrive Australia
Phone: (03) 9526 8942
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