From: "Tim Churches" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 6:50 AM > > I am told that ones that actually use USB 2.0 are much, much aster, but > that most of the cheap ones actually use USB 1.1, which is indeed slow.
Yes, the USB 1.1 drives are slow (64mBytes/sec), but very usable for demos. The USB 2.0 drives are faster, although I think that the speed of the flash memory is the limiting factor. > However, given the finite number of lifetime write cycles provided by > the flash memory in these devices, I would advise against using them > routinely to hold live databases. Backups of database, sure, but not the > live database files. Except perhaps for expendable demos. Finite lifetimes of 1 million writes, which is typical, should not pose too great a problem. As an interesting side note to this discussion, I would like to talk a bit about security and USB drives. I carry a 1gB unit in my pocket to collect data from my systems for analysis back at the shop. In fully locked down (no floppy, zip, CDRW, etc) systems with extensive firewalls, it is very simple to write confidential records or entire databases to a USB drive! While I use this capability every day, the possibilities are not altogether encouraging. Has anyone found a way to lock out or restrict the access to the USB port on a M$oft Windows system? Mike
