Big cheap flash drives...score or scam?

I'm looking to purchase a new flash drive. I've seen some really cheap (under $35) Cruzer Micro 16GB drives on eBay and other sites, but how legit are these amazing bargains? I would hate to waste money on a fake drive or cheap knockoff that can't read/write as fast or something.

I think they are fine. Memory has dropped in price very quickly, and these things have dropped like stones. You can get 8GB Kingston drives here for less than £10 on Ebay. Kingston are very well known and respected.

After learning that the Cruzer (non-Micro) was supposedly faster, I ordered me a nice 16GB one from NewEgg. Oddly enough, it rarely writes any faster than 3 or 4 MB/s!

Depends on what you want to use it for. The newer MBP has a slot for flash memory plus inputs for USB and FW. A large fast flash memory stick or USB thumb drive like the Cruzer can be used to boot the machine in the event of an emergency. Nice backup.

Regards.

I can't believe how much storage capacity these little flash drives have (16 gig...even 32 gig).

I can remember my first hard drive (an external hard drive for my Mac Plus was a 10 megabyte)...and what I paid for it, ooh boy!!!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

I can't believe how much storage capacity these little flash drives have (16 gig...even 32 gig).

I can remember my first hard drive (an external hard drive for my Mac Plus was a 10 megabyte)...and what I paid for it, ooh boy!!! - Nick

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The first PC I bought came with an optional 32 MB hard drive and DOS 3.1. If I remember correctly, the drive was an extra $399. I hate to date myself but......

Regards.

chscag said:

The first PC I bought came with an optional 32 MB hard drive and DOS 3.1. If I remember correctly, the drive was an extra $399. I hate to date myself but......

Regards.

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Yeah...I know what you're saying about dating yourself! My 10 meg external hard drive I paid $500 for it!

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Yeah...I know what you're saying about dating yourself! My 10 meg external hard drive I paid $500 for it!

- Nick

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WOW! 72 pin memory sticks where $200. Saw a pizza box Mac at the thrift store last week $6.00. Talken kicken stuff to the curb.

Mac SK said:

WOW! 72 pin memory sticks where $200. Saw a pizza box Mac at the thrift store last week $6.00. Talken kicken stuff to the curb.

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Yes memory was super expensive...in fact everything was super expensive by todays standards!!!

I can't believe the luck you have finding old Mac's at the thrift store...I haven't spotted any yet!

A few months ago I got a Powermac 6100 for $10...guy selling it out of his garage...it needed a new PRAM battery, and is good to go!

- Nick

I can definitely look back at the expensive flash prices - $30 for an 8MB PS2 memory card at one point! But I'm still curious why my shiny new flash drive is so slow. Sandisk claims their Cruzer drives are faster than the Micro editions, yet my 16GB writes no faster than 3 MB/s most of the time. I know my Micro was at least 3 times faster than that...