USB Thumb Drive vs Portable HDD

Hi Everyone,

I need your opinions on a purchase I'm planning to make soon. I'm in a bit of a fork as to what I'm going to get actually.

A thumb drive would be more portable, so to speak rather than the portable HDD.

An HDD would have way more space, however.

I will mostly use this as a portable drive, bootable with Hiren's Boot CD.

The price difference between the two items, and the two items are as follows:

1. SanDisk® Cruzer® Blade™ USB flash drive 16GB - Php 1,150 - Brand New

2. Seagate FreeAgent Go™ 250GB - Php 2,000 - Used - Warranty until September 2013.

I guess the question I would have is what exactly do you intend to use it for? And just how much storage space do you require?
Thumb drives are very compact and easy to setup and use.

I use both. I really like my 2.5in external drives and I think I only paid like 29.99 on the bay (made in china of course) for the last one with 80g's of space, I use it to keep all my paid for programs on and the keys as well as virus removal programs and such.

I use my thumb drive to share programs and music and such with my Nephew since if he loses it it's cheaper for me to replace and he has tested that theory.
Fabe

thefabe said:

I guess the question I would have is what exactly do you intend to use it for? And just how much storage space do you require?
Thumb drives are very compact and easy to setup and use.

I use both. I really like my 2.5in external drives and I think I only paid like 29.99 on the bay (made in china of course) for the last one with 80g's of space, I use it to keep all my paid for programs on and the keys as well as virus removal programs and such.

I use my thumb drive to share programs and music and such with my Nephew since if he loses it it's cheaper for me to replace and he has tested that theory.
Fabe

I'll mostly be using it as a bootable utility USB drive. And maybe have a backup of all my documents, which is very small in size.

And the occasional transfer of converted video files and such.

However, I already have a Western Digital MyBook Essentials 1TB. It runs on external power and is quite bulky.

Note: If your computer has an eSATA port get the eSATA External drive. As eSATA is like 6x faster then USB 2.0.

And also while your Documents you intend on baking up are small now they could grow over time. Personally if it was me i would get both as Thumb Drives are Cheap.

But lots of good suggestions given already. All in all it just depends on what your doing with it. But no one could go wrong having both in their arsenal.

eSATA 1TB Hard Drive only $99.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-152-_-Product


- Tony

ignatzatsonic said:

Another couple of choices:

A USB drive dock, into which you can put any spare hard disk drive you may have.

A USB to SATA cable, which connects directly from any USB port to any spare SATA drive, without a dock. You just lay the bare drive on a tabletop.

It depends on how much capacity you need and the degree of portability.

I use a USB drive dock and a spare 320 gig drive for making backups every couple of weeks. I could also have just purchased the USB-SATA cable instead. I think they can be found for $10.

I needed more capacity and found that USB thumb drives get very expensive as the capacity increases. I just think of my setup as a USB drive that I can't fit in my pocket.

Nice :) That's not an option for me however as they have to be more compact than that. Thanks for the input though.

TonyTiger2004 said:

Note: If your computer has an eSATA port get the eSATA External drive. As eSATA is like 6x faster then USB 2.0.

And also while your Documents you intend on baking up are small now they could grow over time. Personally if it was me i would get both as Thumb Drives are Cheap.

But lots of good suggestions given already. All in all it just depends on what your doing with it. But no one could go wrong having both in their arsenal.

eSATA 1TB Hard Drive only $99.00
Newegg.com - iomega Professional 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA External Hard Drive 34280


- Tony

I'm not quite sure if I have an eSATA port internally but externally, I'm pretty sure I don't. It's the first time I've actually heard of the technology

Well, the undeciding factor for me really is; Is it worth it to get the 16GB thumb drive?

I mean just for 90% more in cash, i get roughly a 1500% increase in capacity.

But it would be less portable.

*sigh*

I wish I just had the money to purchase both.

oreo27 said:

ignatzatsonic said:

Another couple of choices:

A USB drive dock, into which you can put any spare hard disk drive you may have.

A USB to SATA cable, which connects directly from any USB port to any spare SATA drive, without a dock. You just lay the bare drive on a tabletop.

It depends on how much capacity you need and the degree of portability.

I use a USB drive dock and a spare 320 gig drive for making backups every couple of weeks. I could also have just purchased the USB-SATA cable instead. I think they can be found for $10.

I needed more capacity and found that USB thumb drives get very expensive as the capacity increases. I just think of my setup as a USB drive that I can't fit in my pocket.

Nice :) That's not an option for me however as they have to be more compact than that. Thanks for the input though.

TonyTiger2004 said:

Note: If your computer has an eSATA port get the eSATA External drive. As eSATA is like 6x faster then USB 2.0.

And also while your Documents you intend on baking up are small now they could grow over time. Personally if it was me i would get both as Thumb Drives are Cheap.

But lots of good suggestions given already. All in all it just depends on what your doing with it. But no one could go wrong having both in their arsenal.

eSATA 1TB Hard Drive only $99.00
Newegg.com - iomega Professional 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA External Hard Drive 34280


- Tony

I'm not quite sure if I have an eSATA port internally but externally, I'm pretty sure I don't. It's the first time I've actually heard of the technology

Well, the undeciding factor for me really is; Is it worth it to get the 16GB thumb drive?

I mean just for 90% more in cash, i get roughly a 1500% increase in capacity.

But it would be less portable.

*sigh*

I wish I just had the money to purchase both.

It really just depends on how your going to be using it, 16gb is nice in a thumb drive, however thats rather small if you ever intend on using it for backup say if you ever want to format your HDD and wanna back everything up on to something. If you ever intend on needing more then 16gb i would go with the external drive. And as i said if you do happen to have an eSATA port get a external drive she is eSATA as it is 6x faster then USB 2.0

So overall it just depends on how you intend on using it mostly. Its just a matter of preference. You will most definitely get more bang for your buck going with an external drive. Just less portability then the thumb drive. But still very portable.

- Tony

mjf said:

USB flash/thumb drives and HDDs can both fail.
HDDs can give some indication of failure. In my experience USBs just fail without warning. In terms of GB/$ there's no comparison.

I'd use small USBs (4GB) for misc document storage and utility USBs. HDDs for everything else.

I have a 4GB USB with Hirens 13., Windows 7 system repair, Macrium linux rescue booting, Puppy linux, ++++++++. Still room to spare. You don't need 16GB for this.

Well Said, bottom line get an external drive and possible a smaller flash/thumb drive (4gb to 6gb)