I remember finding a jump drive once. At the time, I wasn’t working or going to school, so I didn’t really see the need to keep one. I think my brother ended up with it. A few months ago, I realized that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to get one. After all, I take a lot of pictures and I do like showing them to people, especially at work. It was time for me to actually buy one.

I didn’t want something huge. 4GB is almost a DVD. 1GB is little more than a CD. 2GB seemed just right. Actually, I decided to get the 2GB jump drive primarily because it was $19.99, making it the largest I could get with a $25 gift card to Best Buy. I didn’t think I’d ever have to use more than that, so 2GB was what I went with. I have yet to use the entire capacity.

There were two things that I noticed within a day or two. One was that it came with U3 software. I have no idea what that is, but I’m afraid to delete it. It might be important. The second is that it came with a ton of random pictures. When I went to work and tried to upload pictures to the Internet, it came up with all sorts of crap. This, I had no qualms about deleting.

There are a few things I came to appreciate later on. First, it doesn’t have a cap for the USB plug. It actually retracts. This is important because I keep the USB drive in my pocket. I don’t want that part getting banged up. I’ve already gone through one cell phone case like this. This brings me to the second thing, which is that it can be attached to my keychain. There’s a little hole that could also be used for a lanyard if you wanted to keep it around your neck. (Key chains and lanyards sold separately.)

I have two Dell computers here and my mother has a Apple laptop. I’ve been able to use it with her laptop and my newer desktop with no problems. (I don’t use the other Dell as much any more, so I haven’t had to use the USB drive with it.) This has proven convenient, mostly because emailing HTML files can be a pain. I’ve been able to move files between the two computers easily. I’ve also been able to use it with the computers at work with without incident.

The transfer rate is pretty good. It seems to be as good as any other USB device I’ve used. This is the first USB drive I’ve had, so I don’t know how it compares to others. I don’t imagine that it would be much better with anything else. After all, SanDisk is a good name. I even have one of their memory cards.

This isn’t to say that you should trust your only copy of an important file to the USB drive. It’s very foolish to put anything important in only one place. By all means, leave the original copy. However, if you need to take something with you, you have a portable solution. If I was going on a trip, I could take the reviews I’m working on with me. I’d leave what I have at home just in case, but I could work on them anywhere I had the right program.

I’ve seen the Cruiser Micro USB drive come in sizes up to 8GB, although there may be bigger that I’m not aware of. USB drives are by no means enough to back up a drive, but it has proven enough to move around necessary files. As I said, I have yet to have a problem with capacity, although I could see upgrading at a later time. I think I would stick with the SanDisk name unless I saw some incredible deal on something else. I still want to know what U3 is, though.