Technology sure has come a long way... I remember when 128MB was impossible to fill up. Thanks Woot... Now I feel really old.

128GB at that price would be less than $2 per gig right? seems cool..

Wow 128GB, that really is impressive. And to think in a year or two we'll be talking (chuckling) about how we once paid $65 for just 128GB on a huge stick like that.

Long, long ago, in a city far, far away, I once paid like $35 for 128MB!

arent these the really unreliable ones that lock themselves up?

rom wrote:128GB at that price would be less than $2 per gig right? seems cool..

Um, you ain't done ur math's right son!
It's around $0.50 a GB!

Can someone tell me what they would use this for? 128GB at USB 2.0 speeds on your keychain?

Doesn't seem to get great reviews....http://www.amazon.com/Centon-Electronics-DataStick-Waterproof-RCDSW128GB-001/product-reviews/B008ABOIBS

alysseumwarrior wrote:Um, you ain't done ur math's right son!

ehem..yeah, was quick to draw on that one.. sorry, but it's still less than $2 right :D

Not so fast! (heh, get it? Read on, you'll get it)

Don't buy this if you need your data transferred in a hurry, According to my math this will take 7 hours and 6 minutes to fill.

Clearly this item is misfiled. Such a sporty stick should be on sport.woot

rom wrote:ehem..yeah, was quick to draw on that one.. sorry, but it's still less than $2 right :D

Right you are! Good comeback.

alysseumwarrior wrote:Um, you ain't done ur math's right son!
It's around $0.50 a GB!

Dude, maybe he's on the metric system or somethin'...

johnlafreniere wrote:Dude, maybe he's on the metric system or somethin'...

Judging by the use of "math's", I'm guessing that alysseumwarrior is the one on the metric system.

*thanks Ricky Gervais for the podcasts*

johnlafreniere wrote:Dude, maybe he's on the metric system or somethin'...

I was thinking that too. Metric monies / metric geggybyteamigs = metric $2 (or treefiddy I'm not sure right now because its so late)

The reviews on Amazon state that transfer speeds are pretty slow, and my experience with Centon would confirm this. I've got a DataStick Pro (8GB), and it transfers at about a third of the speed of most of my other drives (assorted Kingston, Corsair, SanDisk, and Patriot drives).

There's nothing too special about these except for the capacity. Otherwise, it's very generic USB memory. Even the need for a cap is very no-frills. Better models have a retractale plug.

Unless you trasport huge databases or videos, I generally don't recommend such large memories because it's too risky. Not only would you risk misplacing it but there is electronic failure as well. I learned the hard way by having two 32gb USB sticks fail on me. Data can no longer be stored reliably on them despite constant reformatting and dignostics. Lost a lot of data.

It's also hellaciously slow to transfer so much data, especially over USB 2.0.

For those who don't need such a small form factor, consider getting a 2.5" SSD. I recently bought a 120gb OCZ Vertex Plus R2 for only $44 after rebate. Yep, that's 120gb at greater-than-hard-drive speeds for $44. I then put it in a $3.95 external HDD enclosure (from Woot) and voila, FAST 120gb portable memory for <$50. It's small enough to easily fit in my shirt pocket and powered by a the same USB port that transfers data. No external power supply or additional USB port needed.

The bottleneck is the pathetic USB 2.0 connector so I'm looking for a cheap usb 3.0 or eSATA 2.5" HDD enclosure.

The above SSD is SATA 2, which has a speed limit of 3gb/sec. I also bought three 120gb OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs for $54 (after $20 rebate) but they have not yet arrived. The Vertex 3 has a SATA 3 speed of 6gb/sec. SATA 2 vs SATA 3 is not very relevant when you use an external USB 2.0 enclosure but can make a diferrence in a desktop that uses SATA 3.

Regardless, SSDs are so cheap these days that it may be a bettter (faster, cheaper, more reliable) alternative to these large USB memory sticks. It's more reliable because SSD are treated like normal hard drives. That means it uses S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics, and can mark off bad sectors, etc. And OCZ releases lots of firmware upgrades. Compare that with dumb memory like these USB memory sticks.

Here's a comparison of size. For reference, use the Kingston 32gb DataTraveler USB memory and the size of the USB plug. The 2.5" HDD enclosure may look big but it fits very easily in a shirt pocket.

If this was USB 3.0 I'd be all over it...

SOOOOOOO slow

With all the low priced SSD around, I'd rather get a SSD and put low profile enclosure on it for AROUND this price.

benocha wrote:arent these the really unreliable ones that lock themselves up?

Yes, they are.

Google "Centon USB Write Protected".

They have a FAQ answer for this issue.
http://www.centon.com/forum?func=view&id=21&catid=2

(Which didn't work for me, BTW.)

I personally have had the 64GB model do the write protect lockup dance on me.

I'm currently sending in under an RMA.

Cannot recommend that people buy these.

mboverload wrote:Can someone tell me what they would use this for? 128GB at USB 2.0 speeds on your keychain?

I like having these sizes for doing software installs or making them bootable rescue drives.

Or for traveling, load up with video or music.

Phillystyle wrote:Wow 128GB, that really is impressive. And to think in a year or two we'll be talking (chuckling) about how we once paid $65 for just 128GB on a huge stick like that.

Long, long ago, in a city far, far away, I once paid like $35 for 128MB!

That's pretty much what's happening right now with Solid State Drives (SSD). Prices are taking a dramatic drop and you can easily find SATA2 SSDs for less than $0.50/gb. I recently bought a 120gb OCZ SSD for $44 ($0.36/gb). Even SATA3 SSDs can be found around that price. I got a 120gb Vertex 3 for $54 ($0.45/gb). SSDs are MUCH faster than USB flash memory and have very sophisticated controllers (i.e. they try to guess what data you'll use most) so those are amazing prices -- and still dropping.

Gordon Moore formulated Moore's Law in 1965, stating that the number of transistors that can be put inexpensively onto an integrated circuit roughly doubles every 18-24 months. USB flash drives, RAM and SSDs use transistors to store data so the law applies. Moore's Law has held for the last 50 years and current developments show that it will likely hold until at least 2015-2020. Non-transistor-based memory may arrive by then.

While Moore's Law doesn't deal with the cost of memory, the ability to easily fit transistors onto an IC wafer correlates directly with prices.

rom wrote:128GB at that price would be less than $2 per gig right? seems cool..

ThunderThighs wrote:*cough*
50¢
*cough*

Well, ROM is technically still correct. S/he could have written "less than $8000 per gig" and still be correct since $0.50 is less than $8000.

When I taught math, word problems were my least favorite problems to use in tests. Someone will always find a flaw in my wording and give an alternate answer that is technically also correct. Not to get all nerdy, but philosopher mathematicians like Bertrand Russell have discovered many unsolvable paradoxes that result from describing mathematics with words, i.e. Berry's Paradox.

If you are considering buying such a large capacity flash drive, it would be best to buy a USB 3.0 version. USB 2.0 is too slow for moving huge files on a high capacity flash drive like this.

For example, let's say you want to move a 4GB file to a flash drive. Transferring to a USB 2.0 flash drive would take approx 12 minutes. On the other hand, moving the file to a USB 3.0 drive would take about 36 seconds!

So if you have a 100GB file (a 128GB file will not actually fit onto the drive because the actual capacity would be approx 118GB after formatting with NTFS), it would take around 5 hours to transfer onto the USB 2.0 drive as opposed to 15 minutes onto a USB 3.0 drive.

And the times get worse if you transfer multiple files totaling those sizes. So you're better off buying USB 3.0 drives. Even if your system doesn't have USB 3.0 ports, future proof your purchases.

benocha wrote:arent these the really unreliable ones that lock themselves up?

Yeah, I got a 64gb version off woot about a month ago. I had the misfortune of experiencing the protection snafus right out of the box. After some brief research, this tends to be the norm for centon datasticks; they switch to write protections spontaneously and renders your information useless. Although, there are several programs that can fix it, it will most likely be temporary. So, if you like the idea of having 128gb of your files available one day and not the next...then Centon is where it's at!

If you bought the MacBook Air the other day, but are concerned about its small hard drive, here's your answer.

I've got a 64-gig stick, otherwise I'd probably buy this. The idea of walking around with 1/8 of a terabyte on your keyring or in your pocket along with your spare change is mindboggling.

And next year, they'll probably be up to 256 or 512 gig.

Run as far as you can from these, they will fail for sure. I learned about Centon the hard and expensive way.

csdillon wrote:Yeah, I got a 64gb version off woot about a month ago. I had the misfortune of experiencing the protection snafus right out of the box. After some brief research, this tends to be the norm for centon datasticks; they switch to write protections spontaneously and renders your information useless. Although, there are several programs that can fix it, it will most likely be temporary. So, if you like the idea of having 128gb of your files available one day and not the next...then Centon is where it's at!

I gues I'm confused. Why would a write protect status make your data unavailable? It should just make it so you can't write new data--reading should still work.

So, two questions: first, does the stick "lock up" or does it unexpectedly write protect your data? Second, does this happen only when the stick is removed from the computer w/o the safely eject option (as the website implies) or does this happen randomly?

Thanks for all the great advice everyone.

I bought the 64GB version when Woot had them about a month ago... STAY AWAY!!!!

Mine died completely after about a month... Nothing I plug it into will get the light to light up anymore.

They had these on woot on the 17th of August, but they are trying the Jedi mind trick on us because you have to to go through 12 pages to notice it cuz of the woot-off. The product is still as bad as it was 2 1/2 weeks ago...

http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5125089&pageindex=1&replycount=97

128gb at usb 2.0 speeds, ouch

FYI, this USB flash drives can be kind of hit or miss. I've owned a couple of them but honestly they're alright. Their read/write speed leaves a lot to be desired frankly, but then again the price here (as is usual with woot's stuff) is a fairly good trade-off...

Check out the reviews on Amazon.com for more in depth view and other people's reviews about these drives.

http://www.amazon.com/Centon-Electronics-DataStick-Waterproof-RCDSW128GB-001/product-reviews/B008ABOIBS/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_img?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

I'm not just speaking from the reviews here, but rather my own personal views as well as I have owned three of these drives now.

Considering this to use as a lightweight backup's backup to store my employer's PC images, Cisco IOS images/configs, etc. while I'm on the move.

Sure, if my primary and my backup fail or if I forget them, this would be slow to transfer. But it's still better than saturating user bandwidth by downloading 10GB PC images over the WAN link.

ThunderThighs wrote:*cough*
50¢
*cough*

I mean.. technically, they were right. 50¢ is less than $2.

I bought the 64GB one and had the write protect problem. Just got the 128GB one from the last time it was offered and it failed right out of the package. Instead of the write protect error, it says that it needs to be formatted, but then gets an error saying it can't be formatted. I don't recommend these.

sdc100 wrote:For those who don't need such a small form factor, consider getting a 2.5" SSD. I recently bought a 120gb OCZ Vertex Plus R2 for only $44 after rebate. Yep, that's 120gb at greater-than-hard-drive speeds for $44. I then put it in a $3.95 external HDD enclosure (from Woot) and voila, FAST 120gb portable memory for <$50. It's small enough to easily fit in my shirt pocket and powered by a the same USB port that transfers data. No external power supply or additional USB port needed.

The bottleneck is the pathetic USB 2.0 connector so I'm looking for a cheap usb 3.0 or eSATA 2.5" HDD enclosure.

The above SSD is SATA 2, which has a speed limit of 3gb/sec. I also bought three 120gb OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs for $54 (after $20 rebate) but they have not yet arrived. The Vertex 3 has a SATA 3 speed of 6gb/sec. SATA 2 vs SATA 3 is not very relevant when you use an external USB 2.0 enclosure but can make a diferrence in a desktop that uses SATA 3.

Regardless, SSDs are so cheap these days that it may be a bettter (faster, cheaper, more reliable) alternative to these large USB memory sticks. It's more reliable because SSD are treated like normal hard drives. That means it uses S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics, and can mark off bad sectors, etc. And OCZ releases lots of firmware upgrades. Compare that with dumb memory like these USB memory sticks.

Here's a comparison of size. For reference, use the Kingston 32gb DataTraveler USB memory and the size of the USB plug. The 2.5" HDD enclosure may look big but it fits very easily in a shirt pocket.

I dont know why anyone would have 128gigs of valuable data hanging from a keychain either. Not all that long ago, a 120gig HDD in a desktop was "hot stuff". Must agree on the OCZ SSDs-inexpensive enclosures with USB3/eSATAcapabilities can be bought cheap $10+/- at Newegg.com.. -(I have no affiliation other than spending small fortunes there)- cheaper if you find one on a shellshocker or daily deal-Which,BTW all self respecting wooters should be signed up for.PS watch out for the cheap offbrand SSDs flooding the market-SSDs are made up of the same memory modules as flashdrives-so go for the well known name brands they aint that much more-esp if you shop around for deals

I've avoided this brand ever since I bought a pack of their crappy cassette tapes in the '80s when you could store home computer data on a cassette.

If you want water-resistant, I'd go with a Corsair Survivor USB drive. NOT cheap but much better protected than a rubber cap. http://www.corsair.com/en/usb-drive/flash-survivor-usb-drives.html