Portable storage at it's simplest (Emtec Flash Drive C250 2 GB)

Member Name: sandemp

Product:	Emtec Flash Drive C250 2 GB
Date:	09/08/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No set up needed, does what it's supposed to.

Disadvantages: Cover not attached to body.

Costing a paltry £7.99 from Amazon, the Emtec 2GB USB Memory Stick is the ideal way to transfer small to medium sized files between computers. I purchased this when I could only access the internet in my local library and was looking for a way to save web pages to look at later. Although it's a very basic device, it does what it's supposed to do, that is provide a portable storage medium without any fuss or bother. Although it is fairly difficult to open the package it comes in, (a cut and hack job with a pair of scissors I'm afraid), it is then immediately ready for use.

As this is simply a memory stick, it doesn't require batteries and being a flash drive means that using it is a simple matter of plugging it into a USB port. I'm not sure of exact data transfer speeds but a 8MB MP3 can be dragged onto the card within 2-3 seconds while a 1GB file takes about 4 minutes, which is perfectly fast enough for me. I've yet to find a computer that fails to recognise it and opening files is as quick as it would be if they were on a hard drive. I've never had any problems with removing the stick without 'stopping' it first and am very happy with performance. The actual memory that you get is not the advertised 2GB, but this is standard with all memory media, firstly because some space is taken up by formatting information and also because the industry standard is to record 1GB as 1000MB instead of the 1028 it should be. However this does come very close and is reported on my computer as having 1.86GB of free space when empty. Another point is that this uses the slightly older and less efficient FAT formatting system, but as I've only found this to be an disadvantage when using files over 2GB in size, it's not really an issue.

Size-wise, it's very small, easy to slip into a pocket and equally easy to lose, although it can be attached to a key chain or the like. Looks-wise it's nothing special being transparent green, I guess it looks ok if you like circuit boards, but I would have preferred it to have been more opaque. There's a cover for the USB connector to keep dirt out and this clicks firmly into place but there's no where to place it while the stick is connected to the computer and I can see how easily it would be to get lost. This cover is also small enough to choke small children so I do think it's a design flaw that there isn't some way of keeping it connected to the stick.

So there you go, a small piece of technology that does exactly what it's supposed to at a reasonable price. Before I had an internet connection at home I would use this to store web pages to look at later and now I do have a connection I still find myself using it for several purposes. Firstly as I have a very small download limit, I use it when purchasing Amazon MP3 downloads, ready to transfer to my home PC. And secondly I use it to store digital photos ready for when I want to get hard copies at Boots. I can also see that it will come in handy for when I want to give friends copies of different files on my computer as it is very durable and certainly a lot smaller than a wallet full of photos.

Summary: It's USB memory, with no fancy extras