Customer Reviews

PNY 8 GB Micro Attache USB 2.0 Flash Drive P-FD8GBMIC-FS (Black)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

When they call this a micro USB drive, they really mean it. All the superfluous casing is absent from this drive. It's as thin as an SD digital memory card used in digital cameras, but maybe half the width.

There is a small hole to allow this to be attached to some key chains (may not be big enough for some thicker key rings) etc... There is no case, nor is there a cap to protect the connector, which may be an issue for some people.

Plugs in snuggly, in spite of appearances. I bought mine for the back of a Sony BD Live Blu Ray player, but also tried it out in my laptop with no problems. I'll be grabbing some more for backing up important files on my computers.

Great value and about as small as you could get in a USB thumb drive. If you are looking for something tiny, this is it.

I got this USB drive as a gift and the idea behind it was just awesome. I found myself, being the nerd I am, excited by the thought of having 8 gigs of storage in such a small device (my old USB drive was a 1 gig SanDisk Cruzer that I paid 20 bucks for back when 1 gig flash drives were still pretty amazing). The package didn't really have much in it, just some instructions and a small catalog of other PNY products. I had to find a ring or loop myself so that I could attach the product to my key ring.

Looks and form factor aside, the abilities to transfer and store data are the most important aspects for me. Starting off was pretty simple. I just plugged it into my USB port and my computer began installing drivers automatically. There weren't any additional files I had to download elsewhere to get the USB drive up and running. I also liked that the manufacturers didn't install some software that automatically boots as soon as you insert the drive.

I first transferred a couple of installation files for anti virus and anti spyware. So far so good: nothing too impressive in terms of transfer speed but they were along the lines of what I expected. Next, I started installing PortableApps. These files were bigger and actually involved installing files directly to the USB drive. Again, the transfer speed was pretty average and acceptable.

Soon I moved on to testing it out by transferring much bigger files. First up was an installation .iso image of the Windows 7 Home Premium installer (an approximately 3 gig file). I was actually quite impressed at the transfer speed when I did this. The transfer rate started at around 1mb/sec and gradually got faster and faster. Soon, it reached 10mb/sec. At this rate, I managed to transfer the 3 gig file in a little over 5 minutes.

Around the time that I got the PNY Micro Attache, my friend asked me to install some photo editing software on his computer. Now that I had a decent sized flash drive, I was finally able to give him the software. All the files needed to install the software added up to about 8 gigs. I was going to transfer to my friends computer in two rounds: first a 2.5 gig chunk then a 5.5 gig chunk. The 2.5 gig chunk was made up of several files in many directories. As I began transferring my files, I found myself extremely disappointed at how slow the files were transferring. The transfer from my computer to the flash drive started at a rate of a little over 100 kb/sec and peaked at a little over 300 kb/sec. At these rates, I could download the files faster than the speed at which they transferred to the USB drive. Transferring from the USB drive to my friend's laptop didn't take quite as long, but in general read speeds are a lot faster than write speeds. I also noticed that it took a ridiculously long time to delete the files from the flash drive after the transfer (it took 25-30 minutes just to delete the files). All in all this transfer took around 3-4 hours.

After the 2.5 gig transfer, I was all but pessimistic about how long it would take to transfer the second 5.5 gig set of files. The difference, though, was that the 5.5 gigs of files were all in the same folder. Amazingly, it took less than an hour and a half to transfer to the USB drive and then transfer to my friend's laptop. I always knew that transferring many little files takes longer than transferring one big file. However, I did not anticipate such a huge difference in the write speeds (10mb/sec for the single .iso file as opposed to the 100-300 kb/sec for a 2.5 gb set of files and folders).

The design and form both look good and make for this product to be extremely portable. How to use it is pretty straightforward and having 8 gigs of storage is great. My main disappointment would have to be the seemingly sporadic and unreliable read/write rates and times. This USB drive would be acceptable for everyday use in maybe a school setting or just for backing up smaller, basic files. Unfortunately, if you plan on transferring large files often (especially whole folders and directories with very many smaller files within), you might need to be a very patient person if you use this PNY Micro Attache USB drive.

I love this little drive. As with most USB devices, it was recognized automatically with Window$ and Ubuntu. I use my as a Live USB with Ubuntu installed on it. It works pretty fast, the only caveat is I am afraid I may scratch and ruin it. But I am pretty careful about it. I defiantly recommend it for anyone wanting a small and discrete flash drive.

While this flash drive worked, it was great. I love the tiny size. It's very durable and easy to carry around. It worked fine for the first few weeks that I had it, but I didn't have much use for it after a while. Some weeks went by and I needed to copy some files to another computer and it just wouldn't work. I thought that maybe my computer was the problem, but I tried it on 3 other computers with no success. I really can't suggest this flash drive.

This product is small and different from any other flash drive i have used. Took me a minute to figure out how to connect to my computer. But hey, it works good.

It works well. The only downside is it is a little slower at sending multiple small files than my previous flash drive.

Large File Transfer rates (Windows 7)

read: >20 MB/s

write: 4-5 MB/s

Small Files Transfer rates (Windows 7)

read:7-20 MB/s depending of folder structure

write: 0.5 MB/s at start, maximum <2 MB/s

I use this a lot for running portable programs like Firefox and Thunderbird and it is slow to start up, but they run smooth enough when started. I haven't had any problems with durability yet.

It's strange looking at all these (relatively) huge flash drives around that consist of large amounts of plastic wrapping tiny amounts of electronics.

This is not one of those drives... it's the essence of small, a tiny device exactly the width of a USB slot and not much longer than a quarter is wide. Small and light enough that you can attach it to a keychain and not know it's there. I use it with TrueCrypt and KeePass to cart around my passwords and other sensitive data, knowing that even if the drive were lost or stolen it couldn't be decrypted without the keyfiles on my home computer.

The only downside to the small size is the very small hole for attaching it... I actually use what seems to be a Kevlar string attached to a small metal ring that I attach to my key ring (from a similar size KingMax device). I'd be a little nervous about putting it directly on a (small) keyring, as the metal would break the plastic if the connection was stressed. On the other hand, the plastic isn't part of the operational guts, so even if the top of the plastic around the hole broke your device would still be functional.

Get this and make your pockets lighter and sleeker.

I was amazed that you could fit 8 GB of anything on something so small. It would be nice if it included a cover to protect it and a larger hole to put it on your key ring. 5 Stars.

this really is the smallest usb drive ive seen let alone used, time to access and store memory is great. How small is removable storage going to get?

Worked great for 19 months, then died. The fact that it is flat means you have to sometimes flip it over...never knowing which way to plug it in without examining the USB port in great detail. But while it worked, it worked fine and was very useful.