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"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'"
- Theodore Roosevelt |
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Trek 16MB Thumbdrive Smart
Page 1 - Convienent, Portable Storage
Portable storage has been important since I can remember using my first floppy disk.
With disks come certain problems, namely device and format incompatibilities. In recent
times, USB has become a widely used standard. Even with the advent of USB 2.0, USB 1.1
is still widely used and compatible through backwards support in USB 2.0. As pretty much
anyone one will tell you, when it comes to electronics smaller is better (usually). So,
something the length of your thumb and half the width with the speed of USB has to be
good, right? Well, let me introduce the 16MB
Trek
ThumbDrive Smart.
The Trek ThumbDrive smart is offered in 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 MB sizes. I am reviewing
the smallest size (16MB) that I could find for sale on the net. For a complete list of
thumbdrive specifications, check out Trek's
specifications page.
Here's a list of the important specs to save you some time:
| Trek Thumdrive Smart |
| Capacity |
8MB, 16MB, 32 MB, 64MB, 128MB |
| Compatibility |
Mac OS 8.6, 9.x or 10.x, Windows 98*, Windows 98SE*, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP |
| Interface |
USB Spec 1.1 |
| LED |
On: ThumbDrive connected and enumerated
Blinking: Data receiving or transmitting |
| Reading speed |
700 KB/sec |
| Writing speed |
350 KB/sec |
| Dimension |
64mm(L) x 18mm(W) x 8mm(H) |
| Weight |
12g (approx) |
With the Thumbdrive Smart you get the 16MB thumbdrive, a CD with the drivers (for 98 boxes)
and a user's guide, a label, and a warranty card with some support contact information on it.
The thumbdrive cap, which is semi-transparent, smoked plastic, has a clip so it can be
attached to a key chain or onto a shirt or in a pocket.
The Box Shot
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What's Inside
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Some of the more notable features of the drive are the write lock, LED, and cross
platform compatibility. So, I thought I would test out all I could. First up: write
lock. I hit flipped the write lock switch, stuck it in and gave it a whirl. As I
expected, it worked. I was not able to alter the contents of the disk in anyway
(be it deleting, modifying, or creating files). The LED also works as promised.
However, it should be noted that while you're not actively using it does blink but
at much slower rate. While reading or writing the LED blinks at a much faster
rate.
Relative To a Quarter
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Writelock Switch
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Alright, now I will move onto platform compatibility. Basically, all I did for
this test was plug the stick into USB port on several platforms and read and
write some files. I got it to work on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OS 9, and
Mac OS X platforms without a hitch. The Windows 98 SE box I used it on required
driver installation (as reported by Trek) but I had a hard time finding a Windows
98 based computer to begin with, so that should tell you something about the viability of using
this product.
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