SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SDCZ6-4096-E11
by SanDisk
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.99 You Save: $29.00 (73%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.60 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SDCZ6-4096-E11
Customer Review: Unreliable, clunky, buggy. What happened to SanDisk?
Summary: 1 Stars
I thought SanDisk is a well known enough name that I can trust its products. Apparently not. In my experience, this flash drive is nothing but trouble. I only want a simple flash drive that I can use to regularly transfer files between my home and work computers, but this drive doesn't even let me do that easily.
First, its U3 partition complicates things. I tried to ignore it, but somehow my files ended up being write-only (even in the cruzer partition), and I can't overwrite or even delete them on occasion. My work PC runs on Fedora, so at first I thought the U3 system just doesn't like the OS (probably true). So I went and just removed that partition and formatted the drive using a Windows system (required a couple of attempts before the U3 partition was finally & completely gone). I hoped my problems were over.
But now, whenever I copy files, I have to hope everything copies successfully, and the drive doesn't suddenly decide one of the files is moved/open/corrupted, or what not, and decide to remove itself from my PC. Half the time, I have this problem, which causes me to unplug the drive without doing the 'safe to remove disk' step on Windows. And of course, the next time I plug in the drive (on Windows Vista and up), it complains because I didn't 'safely remove' it the last time. How could I? The cruzer didn't show up on my PC anymore after the failed copy.
So I end up juggling the disk between 3 computers with 3 different OS, Fedora, Windows XP, and lastly Windows Vista. I only need to transfer files between the PC with Fedora and XP. But every now and then, I have to stick in the drive into Vista so that the newer OS can see that there's something wrong with the drive and offer to automatically fix it (neither Fedora nor XP does this).
I've tried multiple times to wipe everything and reformat the drive. Problem keeps coming back. This flash drive is worthless.
Customer Review: Great for international travel
Summary: 5 Stars
Sandisk updated their U3 since I first bought this and I find it is even better. Upgrade available at their website.
I mainly bought this so I could have a secure data storage while traveling internationally. What the U3 software offers is password protection of information on the drive plus Firefox browser, skype, email, etc. independent of what is on computers in internet cafes.
So I can save login information and passwords in Firefox, go to an internet cafe, and browse email or log into other websites without entering any passwords. No worry about key loggers or similar spyware. Also since Firefox is running off this drive and not the computer, it should be harder for other types of spyware to intercept information.
I have also used Skype off of it and was able to make calls while just paying for internet time. If necessary, I have Open Office on it so I can even edit Excel spreadsheets or Word documents right at the cafe and send right back.
One thing to note. Unless things have changed, the account on the computer was said to need administrator rights since it adds something to the registry like it would add for any new usb device.
However, in actual experience, even cafes that have software restricting installation or altering of the setup have not caused problems. The worst I have seen was one computer locked me out. But the attendant logged it back in and then I plugged in the drive again and it came up just fine. After that I tried the same computer a different day and it was fine.
The drive also works well for day to day syncing of computers although the built in syncing software is a little quirky. Best to just get a regular program for that.
Customer Review: U3 software self installs and is garbage
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this flash drive after my last one mysteriously stopped working. I figured the 4GB wold be a great size and I had liked SanDisk products in the past (which include several standard SD cards and a micro SD card along with SD card reader.) But this flash drive is garbage.
The last three flash drives I've used you plugged into whichever computer I wanted to use and I could easily access the files without having to access any special software. With this SandDisk Micro 4GB that all changed for the worse.
First I used it on my Mac and had no problems using it like normal. I cleared off all the garbage apps that came with the device and moved on.
The trouble started when I went to use it on a Windows computer next. All of a sudden the flash drive was loading software onto my computer without asking my permission! The next issue was that I could no longer simply eject the drive under windows, the newly installed software (which I came to find out was called U3) prevented me from doing this from anything other than its interface and it took over a minute to eject! I tried to shut off the autorun setting in the U3 configuration but it doesn't save the setting! I was also prohibited from uninstalling the U3 software! I couldn't even format the damn drive!
Now I'm stuck with this garbage software on my computer. I'm planning on returning this drive today since I will never use it again.
The worst part is that it has now tainted my image of SanDisk to the point where I do not plan to purchase any of their products again since I can no longer trust them to "just work".
Customer Review: Good for the price, convenient for backing up and transferring files, not very fast transfer speeds
Summary: 4 Stars
I've used this mostly on my Mac, but also to transfer files between my Mac laptop at home and PCs at work. It works fine for all of that and I haven't had any problems with it in the 4 months or so I've had it.
It's not quite as fast as some other (more expensive) thumb drives I've used - but if all you are using it for is mostly as convenient storage and as a secondary backup for important files you transfer between computers, it works just fine.
To give a sense of the speed of the drive, I compared the time it took to upload and download a 1GB video file, to and from this thumb drive, to and from another thumb drive I have (a PNY Attache 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive), and to and from my desktop external hard drive that I use for backup (a Seagate 1TB USB 2.0 External Desktop Hard Drive).
Here are the speeds I recorded, for downloads from my computer and uploads to my computer of my 1GB video file:
The Cruzer - downloaded 2min, 40s; uploaded 45s
The PNY Attache - downloaded 1min, 27s; uploaded 56s
The Seagate - downloaded and uploaded in about 35s
Bottom Line: I know this isn't really a scientific test, but gives a rough rule of thumb for this thumb drive: it's a bit slower than some out there, but works fine and well enough for many purposes. For day to day ordinary use, 4GB of storage at this price is a pretty good deal. I'm quite happy with it.
Customer Review: Great, but... Caveat to Mac Users
Summary: 4 Stars
I have owned 2 Titanium Cruzers: 512MB & 2GB. I was satisfied with both, although the 2GB case tended to pull apart, so I had to put the pocket slide on it. I bought them because, having conducted some tests, they were speedier than other USB 2.0 drives. As I synch files from school to home and back daily, that is important to me.
I found with my timings that the Micro is very slightly faster than the Titanium Cruzers, but not by much. I love the size and, using a clasp, I can hook/unhook it from my keychain (I think I took an old Mobil Speedpass clasp). The keychain hook on the Micro is smaller and it now doesn't dangle inches below my other keys. Looks to be rugged and the slide for the USB port seems firmer and improved. I do miss the blue glow over the amber.
Mac users-the U3 function won't work for OS X (not that I'd want it anyway). I figured erasing and reformatting from FAT 32 to Mac OS Extended (Jounaled) would do the trick. Nope. I tried zeroing out the data. Nope. I went to the website and got instructions to use Get Info and unlock the files, but they are grayed out. It was so annoying having the U3 show up as a separate disk and having to eject BOTH every time, I finally called SanDisk. I was informed that the only way to remove it was on a PC (Yuk!). I finally went to my neighbor's house, downloaded the U3 uninstaller to her Windows PC and followed the steps. It does work, but seems ridiculously Mac-unfriendly. We're in the minority, silly as that is, but to have to use a PC to make this product workable is absurd. Otherwise, I would give it five stars.