Cruzer Mini 512MB Thumb Drive: It's OK!
Written: Dec 08 '04 (Updated Dec 09 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Very Useful. Durable. Large 512 MB capacity.
Cons: Paint rubs off easily. Write speed not as fast as I hoped for.
The Bottom Line: The large capacity is useful, but the speed is mediocre. If you want a thumb drive, just go for the best deal.
|
|
|
| decayconstant's Full Review: SanDisk Cruzer Mini (512 MB) USB Flash Drive (sdcz... |
The SanDisk Cruzer Mini is a small thumb drive. Essentially it's like a very large floppy disk, or a very small portable hard drive. They come is a variety of storage sizes, ranging from 32 megabytes to one gigabyte. The smaller version are quickly becoming outdated, and may even not be made anymore by SanDisk; I saw no mention on anything below 128 MB at the SanDisk website. The version I'm reviewing is the 512 MB version.
The device itself is about 7.5 cm long, .5 cm thick, and 2 cm wide. It weighs about as much as a pen. All you have to do to connect it is to put it in an open USB port. It's small enough that it won't obstruct any other ports if they're stacked vertically instead of horizontally.
Once the the thumb drive is in the port, it's easy enough to use as long as your computer has an operating system newer than Windows 98, Second Edition. A new drive should appear in the "My Computer" "Devices with Removable Storage" list. It's most likely be called "Removable Disk (F:)," but you can name it anything you want by right clicking on the drive and selecting "Properites," then typing a name in the blank text field next to the picture at the top of the window. The drive letter may be different depending on how many hard drives/DVD/CD Writer drives you have. To move or copy files all you have to is drag and drop or copy and paste. You can also right click on a file, go to the "Send to" option then click on the thumb drive.
If you have Window 98, Second Edition or older, you may have some problems. The Cruzer Mini works great with my new laptop, but I had to do some work to get it running on my older computer running Windows 98. You can download drivers meant for Win98: SE from the SanDisk webpage. I didn't see any drivers for plain old Win98, so I decided to try the Second Edition drivers to see if they would work with my operation system, and they did. I don't know if that will work for anything older that Win98. (I don' know if anyone seriously uses a computer with Win95 anymore. ;) )
Having 500 megabyte of portable storage can be useful. The drive is supposed to support USB 2.0 speed transfers, but the transfers are not all that fast. I just send 46.5 megabytes of MP3s to it, and it took 55 seconds. That's about .85 megabytes/sec.
I used a benchmark program and the results are below:
Linear Read: 8.23 MB/sec
Random Read: 1.32 MB/sec
Buffered Read: 8.15 MB/sec
Linear Write: 1.55 MB/sec
Random Write: .59 MB/sec
Average Access Time: 100.6 ms
The Cruzer Mini is quite durable, but the attractive paint job it comes with is not. Mine's spent most of it's life either in my pocket, or sitting on a desk. The black paint has rubbed off in my pocket and the painted part has turned white. I don't mind it, because it doesn't affect performance at all, but it still is aesthetically unpleasing. Maybe once all the paint is off and it is completely white, it'll look better again.
Having a thumb drive is a lot faster and more useful than carrying 350 floppy disks around, and a much easier solution than carrying around a CD/RW where ever you go. For people who need a quick way to transfer data from one computer to another it's this is an efficient way to do it. Although, since I would think one thumb drive is like any other, if you in the market and see a better deal, I'd go for that instead.
These days the Cruzer Mini 512 MB goes for about $90, but stores like Staples and Office depot are always have sales on these kind of items. I believe that mine ended up cost about $70 with rebates.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
decayconstant
|
|
Member: Seth Bicknell
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Push my nose, I might be changing you..?
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.