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64GB USB 2.0 flash drive. Yes, flash.

engadget.com — Insanely huge storage for a flash drive that size. Yes, it is 6-4, sixty four, gigabytes, of flash memory. This dwarfs many hard disk based portable usb drives as well, and at a fraction of the size. Imagine a 60 gigs flash based iPod..

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  • nebbyfoshebby, on 10/12/2007, -69/+12put that mother in an mp3!!
    • subtle, on 10/12/2007, -43/+17What does that mean?
    • seventoes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16It would be kinda hard to put a physical object inside of a virtual audio format file...
    • Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4i love the people who say stuff like that

      Oh i got an mp3 for cristmas... i say o really i have like 300 of those in my pocket!! (that really messes with them)
  • typo180, on 10/12/2007, -26/+10amazing
  • Khlept0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+39Actual price. $5,000
    • DrGonzo1184, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33Those would be expensive keys to lose!
    • DrGonzo1184, on 10/12/2007, -32/+6Those would be expensive keys to lose!
    • mc1123, on 10/12/2007, -12/+8if an iPod had 60 gigs of flash memory, apple would make it over 10,000.
  • DJFMA, on 10/12/2007, -32/+10http://digg.com/hardware/_64GB_USB_2.0_Flash_Drive_
  • Progranism, on 10/12/2007, -6/+33Am I mistaken in thinking that flash drives have a limited lifespan? Don't they fail after a certain number of read/writes? Maybe my memory is just bad today (no pun intended).
    If they do wear out, then there's no point to them. I demand a Zero Point Drive, one which stores my data in subspace, using powerful electrosexual diodes and other technobable.
    • matthewecornish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10You're right. And turgor is pretty much spot on - manufacturers will say X number read/writes but it's not a definative number... and the average user with his or her 32meg stick for carrying word documents around isn't going to hit that in a hurry. And I'd like to think something with 64gigs storage on it has a very large read/write figure. But it's not like I'm gonna to lay down US$5000 for it and find out...
    • marcopon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's not a (real) problem anymore, with the right combination of hardware & software.
      See, for example: http://www.bitmicro.com/press_resources_flash_ssd_db.php

      "[...] All of these prove that despite the erase/write endurance limitations, Flash drives are reasonably priced and can outlast traditional storage devices for practical use in database and other enterprise applications."
    • Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yes, there is software to extend the life.. but do you want to bet that it's being implemented yet?
  • rYno, on 10/12/2007, -26/+5ok who's the first dumbass to buy this? puffy? ashton? retards.
  • Singee15, on 10/12/2007, -18/+7And now we wait for the next Apple announcement
  • robotplague, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1764!? By golly, I'd need that repeated at least...heck, at least 3! Three! 3! times before my mind could register that.
    • Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Maybe he has O (1,2,3,4) C (1,2,3,4) D (1,2,3,4)....
  • DEFSMAC, on 10/12/2007, -16/+8"hmm...do i buy that new toyota or that new fllash drive?"
    • Permanent4, on 10/12/2007, -9/+22You can get a new Toyota for $5,000? News to me.
    • DyceFreak, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9"You can get a new Toyota for $5,000? News to me."
      most people wouldn't be able to afford a new car, and then a $5000 flash drive, or vice versa.
      once you move out of your parrents house, you'll understand.
  • js2k4, on 10/12/2007, -11/+10First of all, many company's are now banning the use of these things because with the right software, crucial data can be sniffed and stolen. Something that small could be easily hidden in a shoe, this is no joke. In those high end top secret labs where checks are done on how many Cd's are in archives and data is crucial, the potential for this to be misused is ginormous.

    Imagine how much porn you could fit on it though...

    640x480 jpeg = 40kb

    (assuming the 1024kb, 1mb) then 67,634,176 divided by 40 = 1 690 854.4

    wow... I'm sure Ive gone wrong somewhere, that's a lot of p0rn.

    ...now where did i leave that $5000 USB drive lying around
    • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19Companies. The apostrophe is possessive, as in "This is the company's ridiculously overpriced flash drive." Never, ever use the apostrophe to indicate plural.
    • YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4640x480? Get with the times man!
      If it's not high-definition 1024 wide it's not worth looking at!
    • thewhitefedora, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1tis a lot of photos
    • aelfrice, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Chompy:

      Never say never, unless you're reasonably sure.

      I am certain that apostrophes can be used to make plurals in the case of numbers (8's, 56's).

      Make sure that they are also underlined or italicised. This will point out to the reader that we are referring to the number itself and not some symbol spelled "8's."

      Honestly, people...

      ...we are the geeks here. We work with numbers. Syntax is IMPORTANT!
  • xVern, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5April fools?
  • Pplus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Am I the only one that has a hard time believing that they could cram 64GB of flash memory into a stick that small?

    Even if they had numerous 4 or 8 GB chips (not sure what the biggest one they are manufacturing now is) stacked on top of one another it still seems like a stretch.
    • diggik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5For an integrated circuit, external physical size is huge compared to its electronic size. That exterior is mainly to support the connecting circuits outside of the unit. Take a look at most CPU press wafers and you'll see there are fifty or more CPU's on them. The outer edge chips would be the only ones unusable. The CPU with pin-out is ten times as large as its interior CPU just so that CPU can connect with the motherboard pin-out AND be manageable by humans during assembly.

      The only reason there is much size to these flash drives is so 1) the consumer can keep track of it and 2) it can connect via its USB connector (again huge by comparison) to the device you're connecting it to.
    • Writher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Interesting perspective on the size. So why are there not flash drives that are 1 Terabyte+? Purely for economic reasons?
    • ,,|,_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Weight and Dimension Detail:
      Product weight - 0.05 lbs
      Product dimension - 3.875" x 1" x 0 .625"

      It's not that small...
    • Pplus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@diggik

      That's all well and good, but I am referring to the maximum amount of RAM that can be bought on a chip right now, it's form factor, and the fact that you would need several (upwards of ten) of these chips to be fitted into this form factor. If you think that they designed some new silicon layout that can shrink the size of RAM for this product, your nuts. Everyone is stuck with the largest and smallest RAM that Samsung, Hynix, etc. can produce.
  • eHardOn, on 10/12/2007, -24/+3..it's almost as big as My Nutz. My Nutz are so big, movie theaters now serve popcorn in small, medium, large, and "My Nutz" sizes. It's true.
  • Hanthus, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2Portuguese / Brazilian : http://www.htk.com.br/noticia.php?noticia=374

    ---------------------------------------------------
    http://www.htk.com.br/
  • pachecod, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4My iPod has 40 GB and it's not Flash. It cost 1/10th that 3 years ago and is probably even less now. Seagate also has a 16GB portable USB storage solution for $99 that uses a spinning disk, not Flash memory. Maybe Flash is getting overrated?
    • meepus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't think so. Because of the nature of solid state memory (no moving parts) it's less likely to get destroyed (and by virtue of that, get your data destroyed). Because it's just recently become a fad (which is how technology gets cheaper: mass adoption) it is still quite expensive. The more people buy flash drives, and the more companies like Apple use solid-state in products like the iPod, the lower prices will become on the manufacturing the chips, and as a result of that, the products in stores.
    • roguepirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Flash is not overated espicially when you're talking about portability. It takes a lot less to power flash chips than it does to power a hard drive even when its a 1" drive. Compare your battery life of a digital camera when using CF and when using a Microdrive. you're only as portable as your battery life.
    • TheKillDoctor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I have washed and dried my 1gig memory stick twice and still have all my data. Try doing that with a hd based portable.
    • Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hmm, well, my real world "research"..
      5 USB flash drives into the rubbish, working on number 6. 1 20 gig iPod used every day and carried with me everywhere: 2 years no problems.

      2 Lexar physical failures (cases or boards cracked) the other 3 just stopped working (1 PNY stopped responding to the world, 1 Generic Best Buy brand will only allow reading and not writing and there is no lock switch or anything, and 1 NEC will pretend like its working but when you diff the files they are horribly corrupted.)
  • PunchMeIBleed, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2god damn thats alot of flash memory
  • manitcor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5looks real, its listed on the companies web site
    http://www.buslink.com/B1/p_BDP2U2.shtml

    and i found at least one e-tailer that lists prices on each size:
    http://www.buslinkbuy.com/p_cat1.asp?catID=205

    I like the honesty in thier listing, I guess when you selling a product for $5000 you damn well better be honest about the difference in advertised and formatted capicity:

    "**Disclaimer - Actual storage space that you will enjoy may differ as indicated. Digital storage industry measure on base 10, while computer software measure on base 2. (for more detail, please see NIST definition) When you buy an 80GB hard drive, it may only show 74GB available space on your Windows. "
    • gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2" http://www.buslink.com/B1/p_BDP2U2.shtml "

      When I click on the picture there, it shows a larger one, and the drive says on the side "FLASHDI FLASHDRIVE". It looks fake (GIMPed?).

      Also says "Each is smaller than a pack of gum and virtually weightless!" Let me not accuse them of stealing Apple's iPod shuffle pitch...

      Still, "Is that 64GB in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
  • roguepirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4With 64GB in a usb stick, flash notebook hard drives will be just around the corner just imagine the improvements on battery life and reduction in size of notebooks. It's good to see flash capacity growing.
  • EricAnderton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So, any takers on how much longer it'll be before we see digital cameras and cellphones become USB Host-mode capable? At these sizes, it would be all to practical to do once the price drops a bit.
    • streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes -- or we need to see the proliferation of USB On the Go, where the media becomes host. We then just need a simple file manager on something like a 4-line LCD.
  • Riluske, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Ok, this is stupid. For a little extra weight, you can get a mac mini and at a 4th of the cost, and then you would have the whole computer
    • mjaleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Typically you wouldn't be able to put a Mac Mini on a keychain, though.

      Or run without a power cord...
    • robdavy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A *LITTLE* extra weight?! This thing goes on your keyring - try doing that with a Mac Mini..
  • Daem0nX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1All I can say is... GIMME! That is really cool, I hope space keeps raising, and prices keep falling.
    • dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's little matter of hope, and distinctly a matter of time.
  • mjaleo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So is it April Fools or just a really dumb idea to manufacture for sale at $5,000?
  • geojessb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's the kicker is the price. I think that it would be great technology. Apple should be looking to flash drives, or throw in that biological brain matter for extra storage, and then maybe even throw in some holographic storage. Who knows. The future of HD is smaller and bigger, and completely open. Very exciting to see what will be next. What's the next toy my wife gets to tell me I can't have.
  • Mindstormer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2woah, It would be cheaper for me to buy 64X 1gb sticks, I would save 500 bucks too, but then i may as well buy a hard drive. It will be awesome when they come down in price though. Just give it a few years and having a 1gb will be laughed at as you might laugh at someone with a 16mb usb stick.
    • equusdc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, with their (very strange) pricing model, the cheapest would be 16x4GB @ $3984 or $62.25/GB. Inexplicably, the worst would be 8x8GB @ $6392 or $99.88/GB, with the 64GB model costing only $4999 or $78.11/GB.

      WTF?
  • dushyanth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1
    And just in time for the April fools day rush!!! :-)
  • tmav06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1On digg a couple days ago they posted a DIMM hard drive. I'm no expert with computers but couldnt they create a faster connection to the motherboard, instead of USB2 and walah! You have 64 GB of solid state, that doesnt erase when powered down. It would be fast and super small, helping make computers smaller!
  • jcronkhite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3We are SO CLOSE to seeing a 10 terabyte for only $500,000! Man, I can't wait for that glorious day! So, do any of you want throw down some cash on this with me? I get to use it every other weekend. We can figure out the rest later based on how much you put in. I also see a cheap slot for a leap-year user if anyone's interested! SERIOUS OFFERS ONLY! I WANT MY 10TB USB STICK!
  • vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Hrm... These things would be great for long term backups, but $5,000 a pop would make it still way too expensive compared to burning 60 gb worth of DVDs (which would be about 8 or so high capacity dvds).
  • Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Cool, but not worth the price. I'd just go with a laptop drive in a external enclosure. You'll save about $4800, have double the space, and the thing will still fit in the pocket of a roomy pair of pants.
    Still a 64GB video Nano would be pretty sweet.
    • manitcor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Id say this product is analogous to having a high dollar sports car in a showroom. No, most people aren't going to be interested in that high end sports car but its mere existence in the showroom gets people looking at their other products on the way in and out. It give credibility to their lower end products even if its not properly founded. Its all marketing. Though I'm sure there will be one or two rich geeks out there that will just HAVE to have one of these things.
  • GazP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.gazp.co.uk/v2/userfiles/gazp/64gb.jpg

    Click that for a size comparison....

    its quite big and bulky, but 64gb.... you could walk around with half of blockbusters in your pocket.....
  • Seidoger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Imagine a 60 gigs flash based iPod.."

    Imagine the price!
  • xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1holy crap, that's one expensive flash drive O_o
  • denaje, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm up for booting XP off my flash drive! But with transfer speeds that slow, it would take forever! Hmmm, maybe Windows 98...now there's an idea! But the problem is, would the BIOS recognize the flash drive in time to load the OS? Because I thought that it required USB drivers in order to be recognized by the computer...
    • jaxxstorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0you can boot linux from a flash drive, for example damn small linux, so with enough storage there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't boot a windows OS either.
    • buddyfarr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nope, doesn't require USB drivers to boot from usb. just have to have the right mobo bios. my new msi board fooled me into thinking something was wrong because the last time I transferred pics from my digital camera I left it plugged in. the next time I booted it failed because I had "BOOT FROM ANOTHER SOURCE" turned on in the bios and it tried to boot from the camera's MMC card.

      ________________________________________-
      www.farrandsons.com
      __________________________________________
  • dbalaski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can see a use for large sized drives like this.... Such as Software installs (Like an OS in a corporate environment) -- provided the thru-put is good enough.

    This also makes the point that alternatives to Magnetic storage (ie: Solid-State Storage) are becoming a more viable medium. Just a matter of time for the price to fall in line.
  • cwcentral, on 10/12/2007, -1/+164GB flash drive... $5K ... Great. I wonder about:

    --power consumption
    --transfer rate
    --MTBFs

    I think I'll stick with my $89 240GB Accomdata USB portable HD.
  • olegk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3It's much cheaper to get 16 x 4GB drives. $155 x 16 = $2480

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007TC38Q/ref=nosim/104-5883818-5020734?n=172282
  • PumpkinEscobar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So is the attached key to be used to kill the higher brain functions of your ship's computer when it wigs out and tries to kill you and your fellow astronauts?
    • wilsonics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1no, the attached key is for the compimentary car that comes with it....at that price, it better come with a car.
  • j0keR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hopefully this will drive the costs down on lower-capacity flash drives as well now. There's no reason a 2 or 4 gig flash drive should cost anywhere from $50-$100. At the price they are now, I would rather just get an external hard drive.
  • noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's not surprising.
    Look at the size of that thing, it's just crammed with recent expensive flash chips, most likely from Samsung. Not impressive, just expensive.
  • Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Honestly, does anybody keep a flash drive on their keys? And if so, what kind of hardened uranium is it made out of?

    I can't keep the things from being destroyed by carrying them around carefully in pockets and such.. I haven't seen one rugged enough to withstand my keys.

    The little metal ring in the photo of that thing spells "gone in a flash" to my mind. (bad pun intended).
  • lico05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Damn, those keys would cost more than my car.
  • tsupersonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, Flash drive technology is expanding pretty fast. I have a USB flash drive that no one has ever heard of. The brand is Apacer, and it's pretty cool. It's advertised as the World's Fastest USB flash drive w/ read speeds @30MB/sec and write speed of about 18MB/sec. It's pretty fast compared to other flash drives.

    I don't know why you would need 64GB flash drive, since they're supposed to be used for trasnferring files to other computers, documents, etc... I guess you could use it as a external drive for many things.
  • sych0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Headline should read 64GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive. Yes, GB.

    As I read MB and thought "wtf's the big deal? of course its flash"
  • Onibus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd raid 0 three them using a USB 2.0 hub.

    Anyone have the link of the Ipod Shuffle raid?
    Now that's what I'm talking about :P

    POWER!
  • cg0def, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1ok I couldn't resist commenting.
    At the current speed of flash storage who cares if you can create a 64gb drive? Yes MS said that flash media with EVENTUALLY speed up the OS boot up time and program execution time but at the current tranfer speeds those are just POTENTIAL increases. There are hardly any hdds in production today that perform at speeds lower than the fastest you can get from flash media and the difference in speed is getting larger every time there is a new hdd release ( well to be honest is stays the same because flash media also improves ). So untill there is so major breakthrough in flash technology I really don't see how anybody's windows bootup speed would be increased by a flash drive. Plus all that Vista does is use the flash media as a page file storage. That way your hdd's speed is left all to the other programs. Only this matters mostly in notebook computers as in almost all of them you cannot have one hdd with the page file and another one with the windows instalation. ( this is just a layman terms explanation so don't start any flame wars ).

    As far as this particular 64gb drive goes ... well if you can afford it, and if it really exists, and if you have enough time to wait for the drive to fill all of it's 64gb up at the relativelly slow speed of 15mb/s sustained then I guess it's a good product. But there are just too many ifs for me so I think I'll pass.
  • wnysteel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0well, the 64gb model /may/ be a pipe dream, but i do see the 16gb model listed on my cdw extranet site (under $2k), so i would not be surprised if there is a newer larger model that just isn't quite in distribution channels yet.
  • SquirrelOnFire, on 10/12/2007, -2/+560 gig iPod video vs This 64 GB thingie.

    Round 1 Capcity. Winner. Thingie.
    Round 2 Geek factor. Winner: Thingie.
    Round 3 Staying ahead of the Joneses: Winner: Thingie
    Round 4 Can you watch pr0n on it? Winner iPod

    Overall grand contest single elimination deathmatch Winner: iPod.


  • Makoiyi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0GREAT IDEA, This could really be the way to go...why not, from here look at making computers with easily removable hard drives that ultimatly run different OS's depending, I mean by putting all that memory into a removable thing like this, you have so much more space to put hardware. PC motherboard and Mac Motherboard, faster and easier boots with more functionality and travel potential. Your home user in your work comp...do the math!!! But then again there is the problem of speed....that really is a feat to pass lol, great idea again!!!
  • WDot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have a question: If they were to make a 64GB USB 2.0 Flash drive that was about the same size as an external Hard drive, would it be considerably cheaper than cramming 64 Gigs into a convenient Keychain size?
  • thewhitefedora, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1At a price like that I'd have it surgically attached to my body. I think a cord running through my skeleton would hold 5 grand quite nicely
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