usb drives

The device works fine with my XP and W2000 machines. It does not work at all with W98SE. The tech help was useless via email. And you cannot contact them live in Parsippany. W98SE just cannot find the drivers that are supposedly installed during the setup program. Oh well, 2 out of 3 is fine I guess...

Remember that famous quote from Bill Gates? It's nice to know you can be wrong on occasion and still end up the richest man in the world. In any case, at roughly 200x his original prediction, these little devices are certain to replace floppy disks as the new method of portable storage.

This was an impulse purchase at a retail outlet, but even on sale Amazon beat the price. I'm not familiar enough with these things to compare one brand with the next, but I can tell you what I did and didn't like about this particular product.

The good:
Detection was painless using Windows XP. Just plug it in, wait a minute for it to install itself and voila! Instantly you have a new 128MB drive on your computer.

Transfer rates are nice and quick, especially if you have USB 2.0, but even USB 1.1 is fine.

The plastic case is sturdy enough to protect it from normal damage such as an accidental scrape or dropping it on the floor. Sit on it, though, and it's toast.

The bad:
It's a little large to be considered portable in my opinion. They designed it as if it would be something you would carry on your keychain. Too bulky for that, plus the hole on the cap is too small to fit on the majority of keyrings. Finally, I understand the reason for keeping the cap on the keyring so you can easily remove the device, but the cap doesn't hold it securely enough for me to feel safe carrying it this way.

Reliability is suspect according to the other reviewers here. I would have kept this item if it weren't for the bad reviews, but will probably return it in favor of something more portable.

The attache 128 MB USB 2.0 drive offered by PNY is a useful tool for those who work on more than one computer.

If you have Windows XP, setup is a snap - just plug it in and you will be able to treat it like it is any other disk drive.

The drive is small yet sturdy and can take some bumps. The device also has a lock feature (a la the old 1.44 MB diskettes) so that it would become write-protected.

Remember one thing though - the Attache is not really designed to be rewritten repeatedly. If the user repeatedly erases and rewrites the Attache drive, eventually parts or all of the drive will become unreadable. Therefore, one should only erase and rewrite when absolutely necessary. Also, one should always backup his or her files in a location other than the Attache.