Thumb Drives

[Max]

I did a little "shopping" for thumb drives on a few educational-based
online stores and categorized them into 3 groups.
All the thumb drives are 1 GB in size unless otherwise noted.

The first group, is the more basic, inexpensive drives with varying
build quality.
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=744994
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/centon-datastick-pro-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/45306.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/edge-tech-corp-diskgo-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/edgeusb1gb.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-pocket-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/imn26192.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-swivel-pro-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/imn18067.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/kingston-technology-datatraveler-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/dti1gb.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/pny-attache-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/45517.html

The second group contains drives that have unique features, mostly
appearance changes. These drives might appeal to some teachers more
then others, but are definitely not boring, and do stand out from
others. The build quality varies but is generally better then the
drives listed in group 1.
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-clip-rubberized-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/imn18404.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/centon-datastick-designer-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/45337.html
http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-pivot-1gb-usb-2.0-flash-drive-mac-win/imn18408.html
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=740780

The third group has the better built, higher quality drives, which are
obviously more expensive then some of the other drives but some have
helpful features such as being crush proof to 2000lbs, being
waterproofed, have retractable port's, and some even have automatic
encryption built in to them to help with data privacy.
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=759438
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=729832
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=754846
http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=754832

These are just some examples of drives we could get as an incentive
for teacher participation in a training program or for other purposes.
I would assume that we would purchase all of the same drives, but
possibly purchasing 20 of one type, 20 of another, and so forth might
be possible or compelling to attract teachers. Either way, the
difference in cost between the inexpensive drives verses the more
unique or higher quality drives is something we should look at and
discuss, but I would highly advise against the super cheap drives
because of the low build quality, so don't let a super low price grab
your attention and turn a blind eye to quality, because when
transporting data, especially if its important data, is not worth
saving a few bucks if the drive is going to die, become corrupted, or
physically break when in "transit". All of these drives are PC/MAC
compatible and these web sites are specificly Educational "stores".

[janet...@gmail.com]

This is a great list. Thanks for doing the research, Max.
As you say, it doesn't really pay to get the cheapest if it's not
adequate for the job.
We would certainly want to include use of a thumb drive on our list of
basic tech skills, so providing the drives themselves is pretty
important. Another step forward towards information literacy -

On Jan 15, 12:16 pm, Max <maxma...@comcast.net> wrote:
> I did a little "shopping" for thumb drives on a few educational-based
> online stores and categorized them into 3 groups.
> All the thumb drives are 1 GB in size unless otherwise noted.
>
> The first group, is the more basic, inexpensive drives with varying

> build quality.http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=744994http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/centon-datastick-pro-1gb-u...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/edge-tech-corp-diskgo-1gb-...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-pocket-1gb-usb-2.0...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-swivel-pro-1gb-usb...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/kingston-technology-datatr...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/pny-attache-1gb-usb-2.0-fl...

>
> The second group contains drives that have unique features, mostly
> appearance changes. These drives might appeal to some teachers more
> then others, but are definitely not boring, and do stand out from
> others. The build quality varies but is generally better then the

> drives listed in group 1.http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-clip-rubberized-1g...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/centon-datastick-designer-...http://www.campustech.com/academic-product/imation-pivot-1gb-usb-2.0-...http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=740780

>
> The third group has the better built, higher quality drives, which are
> obviously more expensive then some of the other drives but some have
> helpful features such as being crush proof to 2000lbs, being
> waterproofed, have retractable port's, and some even have automatic

> encryption built in to them to help with data privacy.http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=759438http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=729832http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=754846http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=754832