Comments on: Thumbdrive or Card Reader?

By: Lawrence Chen

Lawrence Chen — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:48:34 +0000

Well, I don't really carry either at the moment...but a USB thumbdrive is currently on my Amazon.com wishlist. (2GB Swiss Memory). The USB thumbdrive I did original get, has become permanently docked in my home computer (though that's largely because I use my Windows laptop almost never now). And, I think I want to keep personal data and work data on seperate thumb drives.

OTOH, I do have a card reader 'permanently' installed in my work laptop's ExpressCard slot. I used to have something similar in my windows laptop's PC Card slot (though that computer had a built-in SD card reader).

By: anson

anson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:45:35 +0000

On the odd occasion, i do use my old 1gig ipod shuffle as a thumbdrive…
BUT for everyday use, my main portable carry-around unit is a old 5400rpm 80gig laptop disk-drive i removed and installed into a mini firewire/usb case.

By: Alvin

Alvin — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 10:31:35 +0000

I prefer the USB key. It is more handy to carry around and i don’t have to bring both the card and the reader.

By: Hai

Hai — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:04:17 +0000

I prefer the thumb drive (AKA UBS key) because of its compactness. I think the card reader, however small, is fat enough to block access to adjacent ports. Likewise, if you are in market for a new USB key, don’t forget to inspect the width of the drive: is it too fat that it forces you to unplug other neighboring devices?

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:21:18 +0000

I usually carry both. However, now that I’m using my Lifedrive and NEX 3+ to listen to music less and less, I’ll probably stop carrying the card reader unless I have my camera.

By: William Kuch

William Kuch — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:43:14 +0000

I kill two birds with one stone: a Lexar portable card reader and USB flash drive. It accepts most flash memories and can plug into a USB slot.

http://www.lexar.com/readers/trio.html

Bill