El Reg knocks a fiver off 16GB USB stick

It's with a small fanfare of trumpets that we can announce that El Reg's merchandising tentacle Cash'n'Carrion has knocked a fiver off its Vulture-branded 16GB USB stick. The two sides of the USB stick, showing the Register branding Simple as that. Whereas this small object of desire was £12.99, it can now be yours for just …

[TechnoTechno]

Doesn't mention whether these are USB3? I'd pray they are with that capacity but it doesn't state anywhere...

[Efros]

A pound to a pinch of ...

They're USB 2.0,

[Ole Juul]

Re: A pound to a pinch of ...

And a pound to a US dollar is 1.55. That makes these about twice the regular price. (Around 6 bucks over this side.) I'd cherish the nice red Reg logo though.

[Nameless Dread]

But ...

Can we be sure there's no malware in the chipset ?

[Robin Bradshaw]

Re: But ...

Nameless Dread i think the more important question is, what chipset do they use? Im hoping for Phison 2251-03 so i can put my own malware in it :)

https://github.com/adamcaudill/Psychson

[Cliff]

Image suggests 8GB

It's stamped on the the tang of the plug.

[Anonymous Coward]

awkward

...how these have to be plugged in the right way around - any chance you could make them reversible and charge an extra $20 ? seems to be the way this works....

[Richard Lloyd]

Lack of info

When I buy USB sticks, I need to know:

1. The price (7.99 here).

2. The capacity (16GB here, which of course translates to less in reality).

3. If it's USB 2.0 or 3.0 (no clue on the product page).

4. The read and write speeds in Mbytes/sec (no clue on the product page).

So it's already 50% failed :-( I'll stick with a 64GB Grixx USB 3.0 stick (89 Mbytes/sec read, 30 Mbytes/sec write) for 13.25 quid on 7dayshop.com at the moment.

[Haku]

I was given a fake 8GB stick, ran software that reprogrammed it to show the actual capacity and got 112MB out of it :)

It's actually very useful because I made it DOS bootable for when I need to run a DOS program outside of Windows to change some setting in hardware (like idle time on a harddrive or run MHDD etc.)

Someone I know has an 8MB stick that still works.

[Gavin King]

When I was demonstrating during varsity, the department had to hunt high and low for 512MB sticks to plug into the teaching lab scopes. Presumably they are still around and in use.

The smallest I myself have is 1GB, though. Not in the same league at all.

[Haku]

Sorry, too small, too slow.

I have 3 Grixx branded USB3 128GB memory sticks and at around £30 each they're worth every penny, read speeds reaching 90MB/s and write speeds reaching 50MB/s, and unlike most unnecessary bulky USB sticks you can put 2 or 3 into immediately adjacent USB sockets without issue because they're nice & skinny.

To keep them safe during storage/transport they're stored in individual metal pill keychains, with a bit of foam to stop them rattling around, they're water resistant and very durable.

[Steve Evans]

Re: Sorry, too small, too slow.

Interestingly, when I went for a look at the Grixx, their "grixx" account on amazon is selling the 64GB for £14 ish, but no sign of the 128... However, there was a 256GB, which unfortunately had "Not currently available" marked against it...

Not sure quite what is going on there, maybe a new one coming out?

7dayshop had the 128GB listed though.

[Haku]

Re: Sorry, too small, too slow.

Like the poster above, I bought my Grixx sticks from 7dayshop.com

From now on whenever I need to buy a USB memory stick I'll be getting USB3 type as they leave virtually all USB2 sticks in the dust when it comes to transfer rates, even when plugged into USB2 speed ports.

[Chris King]

Small and skinny doesn't suit me...

If you're a USB stick, I'm Death Incarnate.

I've trodden on several, dropped a few into puddles, smashed one closing a car door on it, and even had one driven over by a bendy bus. I also seem to be able to conjure up wormholes into which nano sticks can fall, only to reappear somewhere completely unexpected a few months later.

I used to have an IronKey, but I wanted a lot more capacity without having to re-mortgage my soul. My main USB stick is now a Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth 64Gb - big enough that it's very difficult to lose, waterproof and bloody difficult to kill inside its metal shell. Being USB 3.0, it's also very quick.

Yours for £47.99 from Amazon, and they now do capacities up to 256Gb.

[PleebSmash]

cash out

Rather than waste $$$ on overpriced USB 2.0 flash sticks with the Reg logo, I'd spend that money on one of the mugs, or the glowing export restricted radioactive materials.

[ZootCadillac]

That's a lot

of beer vouchers for some branding. There are plenty of places where you can buy these cheap pen drives in bulk and have then printed up with your logo. Price per unit is much lower than even this advertised price. You can get an unbranded version of this very drive with 32gb capacity for £4.99 on ebay for a single unit. Go to one of the Chinese wholesale sites and you can get these for around £2 a piece if you buy a few.

If you want to show a bit of brand loyalty fine. But if you want a functional bit of kit you'll be buying something much larger and faster for similar money.

I have a box full of 8gb sticks branded "Ducati". It's only the logo that has people interested when I try to give them away. Which I am managing to do, slowly.