WOF: Do you carry a USB drive every day? If so, what's on it?

Matthew DeCarlo

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
Staff

With flash storage being more affordable, compact and rugged than ever, it seems common for people to routinely carry a USB drive -- or six, in the case of our news editor Rick, who runs a PC repair business. Naturally, most of his drives contain bootable utilities, operating system installers, drivers and so on.

However, I know others who carry school and job-related files, portable applications, bootable OSes, music, videos, pictures, books, and personal information like passwords as well as medical and financial records (sensitive stuff is encrypted of course). Do you carry a USB drive on a daily basis and if so, what's on it?

**USB drive images via ShutterStock

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/49829-wof-do-you-carry-a-usb-drive-every-day-if-so-whats-on-it.html

 
I have a USB on my keyring, so yes I carry it everyday. I have it divided into two areas, 1 part has an encrypted volume and the other part is just for quick transfers of unimportant data.
 
I fix computers for my high school, and I carry a 16GB flash drive in case I need to transfer files from a computer I'm going to reimage or do a OS reinstall on. I keep all of my bootable utilities and software on DVDs, which I carry in a backpack.
 
Being a PC technician, I carry a 16Gb Patriot Rage (quad channel) USB which I have made bootable with a mutli-installer for Windows 7 (all versions, 32 & 64bit). The rest of the stick is filled with sorted apps, drivers and utilities to install/update PC's. This has replaced all the DVD's and CD's I previously needed to carry around.

This bootable USB also helped me install Win8 on a netbook by just replacing the Win7 install directories with the Win8 ones. :) Very, very handy.

I also carry a 750Gb 2.5" external with bigger stuff and to take clietns backups/snapshots.

Thank you Mr USB! Homer?
 
Nah, I don't carry a USB drive with me. No reason to really since I don't do much PC repair these days and if I do, I have the clients bring the system(s) to me.
 
My flash drive is a Corsair Vengeance 64gb and I carry it with me at all times. Most of the files on it are movies, mostly AVIs and MKVs because some of it are huge in size and other miscellaneous files are my projects and vice versa. So it's kind of big of a deal for me.
 
For anyone looking to carry multiple flash drives with little fuss, it's hard to top the utility of Lacie's iamaKey -- a whimsically named line of USB drives with almost the same dimensions as an actual key.

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10531

I know it might seem gimmicky, but the form factor is excellent and the drives are solid metal -- nearly indestructable.

They do fall a bit short in speed and capacity though (16gb) but a good product nonetheless. 5 out d the 6 I carry on me are iamaKeys and Ive not had one fail.

I also have several other flash drives on top of the ones I carry with me, also used primarily for work. The 6th one a carry is an Adata s805. It's designed like a caribiner clip -- I love how solid and functional that one is too.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1203/1/
 
yes. usually it's empty. just for backup drive when I went to someone's place and need some data immediately.

btw it's the super thin one, which I can just put inside my wallet and never forget to bring around. used to be hp v155w but now I used one which is slightly thinner.
 
You never now what might happen in Windows, so a Bootable Ubuntu Drive is perfect in order to retrieve any important files.
 
I have one on my keyring, an 8GB drive that cost me $30 about 5-6 years ago.

I carry college work and Fallout 2, in case I get bored and I'm using some dinosaur. Never had time to play though.
 
Currently the key chain flash drive carries a copy of "Dream From My Real Father" and other anti-globalist conspiracy fact documentaries.
 
Physical storage for consumers is dying. Most people can set up drop box fine unless you work at somewhere with dial up connection.
 
I was never one to adopt any of the bigger flash drives, and usually when I have one with me it's 2 or 4GB. It's usually packed with documents like resumes, portfolio pieces and mobile antivirus or bootable software. When I was in school I would use it for transporting files and projects but then I got an external hard drive and my flash drive collected dust.
 
@doradhorror..."Physical storage for consumers is dying. Most people can set up drop box fine unless you work at somewhere with dial up connection."

Ah yes, the joy of the cloud. Physical storage is dying? I don't think so! People will always have a need for tangible forms of backup and data transfer. I would only use offsite storage methods as a redundant form of backup to any of my information. Using cloud storage as the ONLY way to store and transfer information is just asking for trouble. Plus, I work in remote areas where cell coverage and wi-fi is nonexistent. Give me a few thumb drives any day for swapping data back and forth from laptop to desktop.
 
I have a very small one on my key chain - an 8GB. Have the standard computer maintenance utilities on it - CCleaner, Auslogics Disk Defrag, SpyBot, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, etc. It's nice to have that stuff whenever my friends or relatives are having problems with their computers as 99% of the time those utilities will fix whatever is wrong.
 
I used to carry a usb drive with me. Now I run a small file server from my home. I can access it quickly and easily from anywhere. It's more convenient than lugging around a heavy usb stick all day long... teasing, but everywhere has internet, so it a file server over a usb stick seems logical.
 
Guest said:
I used to carry a usb drive with me. Now I run a small file server from my home. I can access it quickly and easily from anywhere. It's more convenient than lugging around a heavy usb stick all day long... teasing, but everywhere has internet, so it a file server over a usb stick seems logical.
Click to expand...

But if you can't boot from it, there is less of a use for it.
 
No, no USB drive. Carry most files that I need on my phone. Less important ones in my Dropbox account, more important ones downloaded onto my phone.

I don't do any computer repairs for people anymore, so I don't need any programs, and the benefit of a phone means that I can display whatever I need, rather than needing to plug my USB drive into something else.
 
6 usb flash drives:
2x 1gb generic I bought about 5 years ago.; various softwares, pics, and vids I collected.

2x 8gb pqi I bought about 3 years ago.; various free softwares from filehippo.com and free-codecs.com

2x 16gb pqi I bought about a year ago.; 1 bootable windows 8 consumer release preview, another 1 containing bootable windows 8 pro x64
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
GPT-4 can exploit zero-day security vulnerabilities all by itself, a new study finds
Replies
8
Views
55
ZedRM
ZedRM
midian182
USB drive that self-destructs nears its crowdfunding goal
Replies
3
Views
227
bviktor
B
Daniel Sims
The universe's brightest object eats the mass of the sun every day, astronomers say
Replies
6
Views
274
Gezzer
G

Latest posts

Back