Verbatim Store 'n' Go U3 Smart Drive - 1GB (95229)

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Product Details

• Item Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000BTEDQM
• Item model number: 95229
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 19, 2005

Product Description

Product Description

Verbatim’s Store ‘n’ Go U3 Smart Drive lets you work and play smarter using U3 smart applications from www.u3.com. Rather than having to lug a laptop, busy professionals can simply carry their personal workspace with them on a tiny USB smart drive as they move to and from different locations. It includes an easy to use U3 launchpad which provides access to program and allows you to browse contents, change personal settings, obtain device status or install new U3 smart applications from the online library. Best of all, U3 smart applications leave no trace of your visit on a host PC, providing an unprecedented level of security and mobility. Even browser cookies stay on the flash drive, enabling recognized login access from any computer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Slick password protection and auto-antivirus, promising platform, May 2, 2006

By	H. Lam (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Need a new USB flash drive, and primarily use a Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP system (i.e., don't use Macintosh or Linux)? The Verbatim U3 Smart Drive combines data storage and a portable applications platform into one device, and provides two features that make it immediately worthy of consideration: slick password-protected access to the U3 drive, and auto-run anti-virus.

On Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, and above systems, the Verbatim U3 Smart Drive shows up as two drives: a 4-megabyte CD-ROM drive containing the U3 software platform, and a USB data storage device with 927-megabytes of available storage space. When the U3 Smart Drive is inserted into a computer, the CD-ROM portion starts the U3 Launchpad first. When password protection is enabled, the password must be correctly entered to activate the data storage portion of the drive. Otherwise, the computer reports that the data storage portion of the drive is unavailable. Verbatim's U3 Smart Drive comes with McAfee Anti-Virus, which automatically scans active processes then the Smart Drive itself when the drive is inserted into a computer. This ensures that one's data will be virus-free anywhere one chooses to use this USB flash drive.

The U3 portable applications platform enables compliant software to be installed on and run directly from the USB flash drive itself, eliminating the necessity to install them on a computer. People looking for flexibility to run utilities not provided in a controlled computing environment, such as in corporate or university settings or at a public access terminal, will appreciate this capability. For example, users whose corporate networks only support Internet Explorer can instead choose to run Mozilla's Firefox web browser from their U3 Smart Drive. The U3 website lists available U3 compliant applications, utilities, and games; some are free; most others must be purchased. Having U3-compliant versions of Firefox and McAfee Anti-Virus on my U3 flash drive has been quite convenient for me (though I am annoyed that Firefox U3's homepage is stuck at YourBrainz).

Overall, the U3 platform experience is not as seamless as it should be, in part because of its youth, but also because of inherent design issues in the Microsoft Windows operating system. If the drive is inserted before the computer is powered on, the U3 Launchpad software must be manually run to activate the data storage portion of the drive when password protection is enabled. Some U3 applications are dependent on the features that may be absent from the host operating system. For example, Anonymizer for U3 currently requires that Microsoft's .NET Framework 1.1, typically an optional download, be installed on the host computer. Other applications may require user expertise to either determine whether a host network allows (or blocks) program traffic, such as instant messaging and Skype; or to perform proxy configuration. U3's marketed ability to deliver a portable, private and protected computing environment is still very dependent on both the host computing environment and the user's technology expertise.

The Verbatim U3 Smart Drive's average sustained write speeds are somewhat slow. It took me over three-and-a-half minutes to transfer a 698.8 MB file for an average sustained write speed of approximately 3.2 MB/s. Consider a faster USB flash drive if you regularly use such large files or large numbers of files. I think Verbatim's U3 Smart Drive performs adequately for most people, who commonly transfer few or smaller files - here, transfer time is unnoticeable. Read speeds are acceptable; I've had no problems viewing movies from the U3 Smart Drive.

If you are able to find Verbatim's U3 Smart Drive for a few dollars more than a typical USB flash drive that offers data storage only, buy it. Verbatim's U3 Smart Drive's password protection, anti-virus, and ability to run sophisticated portable programs are worth a small premium.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beware Transfer Speeds of U3 Drives, November 9, 2005

By	Robert Salita "Software Developer" (CHI PAR PHX SYD PDX CLD NKC) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What's the data transfer speeds? The benefit of U3 Technology is that they can boot/run software directly from the drive so transfer rates are a really important spec. I want a really fast U3 device on BOTH read and write. As of this date, transfer speeds of U3 drives are so disappointing that drive manufacturers won't show them. The only specs I've found shows that initial drives are only 40x or 6MBs. Current non-U3 speeds are as high as 150x or 22MBs. We need to know read and write speeds before buying!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant, November 23, 2005

By	Rick Tharp "the_rxrick" (Plattsburg, MO United States) - See all my reviews

I love this little thumb drive, I use it every day. Read/write speed is acceptable, even on my ancient P3-600. I compared the transfer rates of the Verbatim vs my Lexar JumpDrive, both took the exact same time to copy a large 500 MB CD image to/from my hard drive. I'm no computer engineer, I bought this drive because of the U3 Launchpad, not because of published transfer rates.

What enthused me about this drive is the U3 Launchpad. USB thumb drives have been around for a few years and, although you can run some applications, it is not always easy. The U3 Launchpad makes it simple to run *my* applications with *my* data on any Windows 2000 or XP PC. U3 puts the *Personal* back in my PC. And the icing on the cake is, when this thumb drive is ejected, the U3 Launchpad cleans out any lingering personal data on the host machine. U3 makes portable, fast, secure, private computing easy.

Although U3 applications are limited as of this writing, software developers are starting to jump on the U3 bandwagon. I currently run Firefox, Trillian, Coolplayer and EssentialPIM from this drive. A U3 version of OpenOffice is also in the works, which, when available, will complete my little PC-in-a-thumb.