4 gb flash with retracting connector - Silicon Power TOUCH 510 Black USB Flash Drive SP001GBUF2510V2K

Recommended with qualifications.

Basically, I was looking for a ton of capacity at an inexpensive price, but with the speed to handle running applications.

The idea I had behind this was to run non standard apps like Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, IM, etc. that my company does not support on my flash drive. I needed speed and capacity, especially for the mailboxes. For this reason, the drive is a constant companion, so I've gotten to know it's warts as well as it's attributes.

Pros
4 GB is plenty for what I do, but I could even see going to 8 GB. It was very competitively priced - probably around $75 back around Feb. 2007, and I see it's the same price @ end July 07 - still relatively inexpensive from what I found in a casual survey on the net this morning. (search = high speed 4 GB flash)

Cons
One thing you notice about this stick is how long it is. That's not really a good thing. It tends to get bumped & wigged out of it's socket a lot.

It also is not a snug fit. It's not loose, but at least on my Dell Latitude 600, the connection has a tiny bit of side to side play - certainly functional - but enough to not have much tolerance for being bumped. Had it been snugger, it might have overcome the tendency to lose contact if it gets bumped.

Note that if you're using this on a desktop, or a laptop docking station, this isn't an issue.

It's a slight issue if you're using this primarily 1) on your portable and 2) you're primarily archiving. If you coincidentally bump this while you're writing to it you could get a corrupted file, but that would require all the circumstances to align.

My problem with this is that when you are running applications and you bump it out of socket, the apps tend to crash. Firefox will usually restore a session on restart, and Thunderbird will just need to be restarted. I haven't suffered any major consequences, but it's amazing how often I have to do this, and it's a PIA if you haven't saved work, so you have to set frequent backups in your preferences.

It can also be inconvenient if you have a lot of tabs open and some required log-ins.

The jury is out on speed. I used to use a Cruzer Micro from Sandisk and it worked great. It was short, and had a tight fit. The problem was it lacked the capacity I needed, plus I installed the apps differently. I actually installed them on "drive e:\" but the registry and profiles must have been installed to the "c:\" drive by default, because even as a slower flash drive, speed was not an issue.

With the Silicon Power drive, I am using the "Portable Apps" versions of Firefox, and here is where I lose a lot of speed. Not in the every day things like web page loading, but in the little things like saving bookmarks. Portable Firefox writes every little change like a new bookmark to a local folder, and since profiles are on the flash drive and not the "C:\" drive, there's a pause of about 5 seconds. None of the other functions of Firefox slow down, and writing and saving e-mails or other files such as Open Office docs do not slow down and require me to wait, so maybe it's a characteristic of Firefox. (Again, surfing, launching a bookmark or link, etc. does not slow things down).

The retractable latch is a nice feature, but the latch buttons on the sides are extremely stiff and require a lot of pressure. The buttons are not blunted, so delicate fingers will be pained in squeezing these protrusions.

Bottom line? If I knew what I know now, and because of how I use it, I would pay extra for a shorter package with a tighter fit. Maybe 50% more. As it stands, I've learned to live with the warts and it's serviceable. I may ultimately just relegate this to archiving and backup, though.
Pros: Retracting connector, capacity
Cons: Physical size, latch mechanism

This review was written in the old system and had content requirements that are different than reviews written today.