Transcend JetFlash 128Mb.

One of the great things about computing as a hobby, is the continual stream of new gadgets that appear, sadly because the companies don't give them away, the amount I can try is limited, but after a Zip drive, the other gadget I always wanted to try was a USB Thumb drive. Unfortunately I could never warrant spending the money on something I basically just wanted to have a play with.

Well I recently visited a car boot sale, (I'm not sure what they call these in other countries, but basically you fill the car with unwanted items and sell them in a field to unsuspecting buyers!) and as I wandered around, I spotted, in amongst a box full of computer nick naks, leads, old disks etc, a JetFlash USB drive, it looked ok, apart from a few scratches.
So I enquired the price, the lady running the stall said £1, but after I pointed out it had no driver disc and it became apparent that the lady knew nothing about computers, the bits and pieces were just odds ends her son had left, when he moved out, I managed to haggle her down to 60p and the deal was done.

As I run Win98se, I knew I would need a driver, so when I got home, I went on the internet and after a brief search found the Transcend web site, where I was able to download the driver and a PDF manual for the drive.
I installed the driver and Windows recognized the drive and it all worked perfectly, you use it just as you would a floppy, dragging and dropping files, but its much, much faster, also you have much more storage capacity.

The drive can be partitioned (You need another little software download.) to give a password protected area, which worked fine when I tried it and it can also function as a boot drive, the same as making a bootable floppy disc, although I couldn't quite see the point of that, just use a floppy!
The drive also has a switch that allows you to write protect it, the same as on a floppy.

The only downside to the drive, is that although it is very slim, if used directly in my computers USB port, it blocks the port next to it, fortunately I have a spare port on my USB Hub and it worked happily from there. But looking on various web sites, it seems when new the JetFlash came with a USB extension cable to improve access, it was also around £40!!

So overall I'm very pleased with my new little drive, if you want to transfer files to another computer, it is certainly a lot easier and reliable than burning a CD. It is also great for keeping your important files backed up, as it is so quick. If you can find a cheap one I would recommend buying it.

Rob Goldfish Web Site

Copyright 2005 Rob Goldfish.