Re: [ARSCLIST] USB flash hard drive as archive storage

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Two thoughts:

(1) Right now the cost per GB is huge compared to hard drives. A 1GB Compact
Flash card is around $250. A 200GB Maxtor drive in USB/Firewire case with power
supply is around $200. A 200:1 cost increase! Yes, I have almost 4GB of flash
cards for my collection of digicams and PDA*, but I also travel with 80GB of
external disk drives in my camera bag and 40GB as miscellaneous.

(2) I recall reading somewhere that they suspect the flash memory to have
become corrupt on Spirit. I did have one flash card "forget" and have to
reformat it...it was fine since. There are the odd reports of scrambled Compact
Flash cards in the Nikon forum I hang out in.

More work needs to be done. It's intriguing, but way out of the ballpark
pricewise at the moment.

Cheers,

Richard

(*In order to certify me insane, my Nikon D100 has two 1G flash cards, my
Olympus C750 has a 512M and a 256M, my wife's C750 has a 256M, my PalmOne T3
has a 256M, I gave a friend my older Kodak with a 256M, and my boys have 128M
each in their Kodak 2MP digicams.)


--

Richard L. Hess
http://www.richardhess.com/


Quoting Jos Van Dyck <jos.van.dyck@xxxxx>:

> What are your thoughts and expectations re. the use of so-called Pen
> drives,
> solid-state USB2 Flash memory sticks? No more mechanical problems with
> drives!
> Would these (or other solid-state storage devices) become a viable and
> reliable
> long-term storage alternative to CD-R, hard disk, tape or other
> storage media?
> What is their life expectation and vulnerability?
>
> Cheers,
> Jos Van Dyck
> NGM
>