| Getting data thats easy to transport can be a problem, burning a CD is of course cheap and easy and accessible to nearly every system out there but CD's are large and bulky and dont always fit in a pocket. Cd's are prone to heat damage also, so something thats neat and compact, can transfer data rapidly and easily and be changed at will would be good. Hence the fact solid state disks and drives are the 'in thing' at the moment. Are these items worth the money, thats the big question and one we hope to find the answer to today. 
What you get in the box is a miniCD of drivers for the likes of Win9x, USB extension cable for those of you that are not lucky enough to have a front mounted USB system, lanyard for carrying the unit around your neck for safety and of course, the USB drive itself that seems to sit on a plush fabric coated recess in the pull out tray like a corpse in a coffin. There's also a manual for those of you that simply cant work out the basics of how to operate this unit, but essentially, if its Win98 then you need the drivers, if not just plug it in. Windows98 as you know cant recognize the USB mass storage device system so needs the help, the drivers are on one of those mini CD's and I personally wont allow them anywhere near one of our systems, anyone found using them is hung drawn quartered and sold as a toy to Amil and Benjina at Chillblast! If you have win2k or XP then just plug it in, it recognizes the mass storage device and loads it up as a removable drive in explorer, from there you just treat it like a Harddrive on the system, save, read, write, zip, anything you like to it.
 Connecting the unit is easy as we have said, and its transfer rates of 900kb/s read and 600kb/s write are not to bad. This is the USB 1 system remember and the USB 2 version is available if you so desire. It was out of stock when we wanted it so we had this one instead, the only real difference is its faster in USB2. The unit is available in a range of sizes to suit your needs also, from 16mb units to a massive 2gig variety!!
 When the units plugged in there is a green LED activity light so you know the unit is working, its not highly bright either which is good as a soft glow seems more suited than a spot light effect. The only real concern you should have is how to shut the disk down as you cant simply unplug it. You need to go to the system tray icon that appears with removable devices and right click it, select unplug hardware then select the item to shut it down. This means that after a few seconds you get the message stating that you can safely remove the device from the system. If you dont do this you could lose data or corrupt what you have. Its essential that you follow this procedure to remove the device!
Right, testing was a simple matter of transferring large amounts of file, assorted zips, MP3's and other odd sizes of file. Transfer took about a minute to fill the unit up and deleting took a matter of seconds ! Not to bad really as its only a file transfer media not a back up media. Its handy for the 'road warrior' to transfer data from laptop to home system or work system, for gamers to keep drivers on, school work and indeed everyone should really have one. I've used it to transfer drivers from the main server to the local PC when the network was down last week and without it I was slightly in trouble. For transferring documents, keeping portable backups or for sharing data its invaluable, every man, woman, child and geek in the world should have one, it makes sharing so much easier and we all know sharing is fun ! 
Pros:
Simple device that stores data with no moving parts. (Except the dust cap)
Simple green activity light
Easy to use and set up
Fast speed of transfer makes it an ideal choice, faster USB2 option also available
Various sizes available to cater for all needs and budgets
Cons:
None really
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