SanDisk Cruzer® Micro (512 MB) USB 2.0 Flash Drive (sdcz4512a10) Review

Well, guess I have to put this in perspective...my SANDISK  Cruzer® Micro (512 MB) USB 2.0 Flash Drive is a convenient "sneakernet" tool (i.e. something you can physically copy files to from one computer and handcarry it to another computer (or give it to another person) to affect a file transfer) when I can't otherwise electronically copy a file by network copy (FTP, etc.).  Of course, the old "standby" used to be the 3.5" floppy disk, and I'm dating myself by saying I used 5.25" and 8" floppies, before that digital cassette tape, and even paper (or mylar) tape and card stacks.  ...of course compared to this, the SANDISK  Cruzer® Micro (512 MB) USB 2.0 Flash Drive is a pleasure to use and like other flash drives almost de reguir when giving someone a file that they need on a system that you can't otherwise send to them or have them "pull" from an ftp server. 

 Yes, of course there are physically larger flash drives, but compared to the one I'm replacing this with (an original USB 1.0 IBM 4MB flash drive) the drive is pretty spacious.  Are there larger drives? Of course, and there always will be ...and the corresponding prices have fallen to almost nothing....a few years ago I paid almost $79 for a 512MB SD flash  memory card...now these things go for single dollars (SD or USB format).  But that's expected with commodity electronics components nowdays.

 The SANDISK  Cruzer® Micro (512 MB) USB 2.0 Flash Drive  has some useful bundled software tools to restrict access to files, and to help organize them...they may be disregarded, but do add to the usefulness of the product.

 In terms of disadvantages, most I can think of are not unique to SANDISK  Cruzer® Micro (512 MB) USB 2.0 Flash Drive but also attributes of other USB flash drives...the only unique disadvantage I could think of was the easy to lose plastic pieces of the case..but this is a minor point.  A countering positive is the convienient neck lanyard you can attach the drive to when not in use..it also helps remind you to retrieve the drive from a system when not in use...so you don't lose it...if you notice it missing from the end of your lanyard (easy habit to get into checking for it there). 

I also had a bad habit of overwriting the entire flash drive when I mounted it as a filesystem on a Linux box...very easy to do.  Take my advice and make sure you back up any content you deem irreplaceable...in fact, it isn't a good idea to use the flash drive as any sort of unique storage, since you can easily lose it...resolve to back up any critical files on your main disk system regularly.  You should really think of the flash drive as "temporary" storage (rather than permanent) for files in a convenient format.   

This brings up another disadvantage of flash drives, they tend to be fragile...my father has ruined two of them by leaving them inserted in the USB slot of a system  and then tilting the system (as you might do when removing the cover)...the USB connector bent badly on both of them...I straightened one out, soldered another connector on the other long enough to transfer unique files (see, told you to back them up for a reason!) then threw away the flash drive.