BY BILL CHACHKES

I had seen many people, including several friends, carrying various flash drives around. I decided to treat myself to one as an extra, little birthday present. After looking at different brands, I chose the PNY Attaché drive.

The 128 MB model costs just $24 after a $10 rebate. I was impressed with its size (it seemed to be the smallest of all the flash memory drives), and it's strong construction. When you copy to or from the drive, a small light near the bottom of the unit flashes. The Attaché's only moving part is the security lock switch on its side which prevents erasing the drive's contents accidentally. Each case is color coded to reflect the drive capacity (Bluish-Green for 128MB, red for 256MB).

The Attaché is compliant with USB 2.0 and 1.1 standards. The quick start manual states that you should only use it on a powered USB port only (Via a powered hub or directly connected to your computer ), but I have found that it will work in a variety of situations, with mixed results. While it will not respond, under any circumstance, when plugged into a keyboard, it will when plugged into a non-powered, USB hub connected directly to an iBook.

While drivers are needed to install and use the drive on your computer if you run Windows, the drive will boot instantly on any Mac OS computer. It seems that most people use these drives to transfer files between computers that are not networked, but I was able to find other uses, like transferring large numbers of photos from one machine to another for recording onto CD's or DVD's. Now, instead of carrying CD's or Zip disks with lessons prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint, I can save to the Attaché, and copy them to a school computer before class. A company is even producing these devices for people to store their own medical records to carry with them (think Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse carrying his own X-rays to the ER).

My one complaint with this product is the small hole on the side of the case for the neck lanyard. Overall, it is a fine device and is more than worthy of the price. Anyone looking for inexpensive portable storage should look into the Attaché from PNY Technologies.

TOP

A company is even

producing these devices

for people to store

their own medical

records to carry with

them (think Patrick

Swayze in Roadhouse

carrying his own

X-rays to the ER).