thegametech wrote:I've had this brand before. It was the 8 gig stick, but looked just like this one. My biggest complaint: The case actually came off at some point. And I'm not rough with my flash drives. Also, after the case came off, it was pron to damage... which it did get.

Are you sure you have this metal model and not the cheaper plastic one?

Since many less reputable brands, especially those sold on eBay, exaggerate their capacity and speed, it's a good idea to actually test the memory before making any repeat purchases. Many of these apps check the capacity and speed as well as reliability of flash memory products, i.e. Flash drives, SD cards, etc.

Here are some apps to test the capacity, speed and reliability of your flash memory.

according to amazon.com these drives fail!

http://www.amazon.com/Centon-DataStick-Flash-Drive-GB-001/dp/B001QFYCU2

Good price for the size but there are already several 32GB drives on the egg for ~$40. (by patriot, verbatim, TDK, and Memorex) Personally I would spend a little extra for something faster and/or more reputable. They're actually listed on http://forre.st/storage because they are currently the cheapest flash drives in terms of GB per $.

eberin wrote:"Speed: Standard Speed" means it works great as a USB storage device, but is not fast enough to be used as "ReadyBoost" device. Still a good price however.

Readyboost is not ready. All Readyboost does is essentially create a tertiary swapfile onto a a USB drive. Thats just wrong over USB 2.0 and I don't care how fast the drive reports to be, the bus just cant handle the kind of traffic the CPU need to swap memory fast enough for any gains at all.

The only reports of Readyboost actually working effectively that Ive seen are enabled via PCIE expansion card slots. Those cards are rare and spendy.

I have not seen any numbers for readyboost attempting to work over USB 3.0, but that point is moot since there are practically none of those yet.

Readyboost over USB is just insipid, why would you swap a tertiary swap file over to your slowest drive interface?? Never was intended to work in practice, only in theory.

allenallen wrote:why do the alaskans NEVER woot? ANSWER ME!!!!

Uh...because Woot doesn't ship to AK or HI...

I'd stay away, based on these reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Centon-DataStick-Flash-Drive-GB-001/dp/B001QFYCU2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1297665998&sr=8-1

here is a positive reviews from buy.com
buy.com

I just bought this thing. Got second thoughts... Amazon users (2) trashed it.

dpwiener wrote:According to the picture, there doesn't appear to be any hook for sliding it onto a key ring. That would be a deal breaker for me, although other people might not care.

Looking at the picture I think there is an inset groove with a bar across it at the back of the drive itself. The keychain attaching loop would go through there.

For those who lose caps, drill a small hole in the side and the top of the cap, aligned across the top edge. This lets you loop an attaching cord through. You could also just drill two small holes in the cap. It's not like the cap is watertight anyway.

i bought 3 of these and this brand from woot a while back and threw them away bec i could not retrieve the data from them that i had stored... they are very unreliable, to say the least.. i lost more than money with these.

This thing's so slow, it's measured in millimeters per second!

mklawiter wrote:To answer the question directly, yes, it will work on both PC and Mac.

http://www.centon.com/usb/styles/pro
Go to 'Details' and look under 'Features'.


Though I do wonder why people don't read the description. Not that it was hard to find info on their own site saying that it is, but it's on woot's main page too.

I guess I could amend my original question to "will this work fine transferring files back and forth from my pc and my mac?" No need to be snarky. (welcome to woot)

Kind of on the small side

allenallen wrote:why do the alaskans NEVER woot? ANSWER ME!!!!

http://www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx#q14

I would be kind of ticked if I lived in Assinippi, though. By the lack of shipping, I mean. I am sure people know the name of the town before they move there so they know what they are getting into in that regard.

tmilas wrote:I just bought this thing. Got second thoughts... Amazon users (2) trashed it.

Always a good plan of action. Buy now, ask questions later.

Waiting for the "woot off" on this one... $30 is not low enough.

dabills22 wrote:Hmm... What's the "Pro" for??

Probably the metal housing. I also own a Centon 32gb USB flash drive that is VERY cheaply made of plastic. The entire thing feels very flimsy.

MerwinJr wrote:Waiting for the "woot off" on this one... $30 is not low enough.

Less than $1 per gb is not low enough for you? Keep in mind that this has a metal housing, not cheap plastic.

brombomb wrote:According to Centon's website and flyer the Pro is for it's "Aluminium Casing and Affordable Storage". Really its a "design" instead of their NASCAR line. As seen here: Centon Pro Style

Right, they also sell a Centon DataStick Sport which is the same drive in a different casing. I suppose it's their Tactical version. lol

There's more reviews on that one:
http://www.amazon.com/Centon-DataStick-Sport-Waterproof-DSW32GB-001/product-reviews/B001FWBLKA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4149488&pagenumber=0&RSort=1&csid=ITD&recordsPerPage=5&body=#ReviewStart

Too many reports of failure for me to consider. That may be why 32GB Centon USB drives are no longer available from TigerDirect.

http://www.amazon.com/Centon-DataStick-Flash-Drive-GB-001/dp/B001QFYCU2/ref=sr_1_12?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1297667319&sr=1-12

Similar Product on Amazon gets pretty terrible reviews.

worldanh wrote:here is a positive reviews from buy.com
buy.com

Check out this one:

"5 of 5 Don't trust this freaking company!#@! 9/16/2010
A customer from Los Angles, CA
This is the worst company to deal with!!! They will never honor their rebates, they will ignore all your service calls. Do yourself a nightmare and stay away from them!!!"

You don't want to be in the same county when this guy makes a 1-star review!

thaskaman wrote:i dont care how reliable they are
i only want to know one thing...




are they iPad compatible

Sure, just plug it into your handy iPad USB port. ; ) oh... wait, there's not an app for that!

leftielespaul wrote:Always a good plan of action. Buy now, ask questions later.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic but on Woot, that is indeed a good strategy. That's because things sometimes sell out and Woot has a very generous cancellation policy. As long as Woot gets your cancellation before the item is sent out, they will honor it. That means a Grace Period of about 2-3 days. Note that I am, however, only speaking from experience, without any knowledge of their official policy.

PS - Don't abuse this policy or it'll ruin things for everyone!

It's not a Jatravartid question. Pretty much every memory stick I've ever tried works on both MAC and PC. However, you need to be sure it's formatted FAT32, not NTFS to work with MAC. Unless you have a special add-on software on your MAC that lets you work with NTFS devices.

kitcatbrat wrote:Stew-pid question...this will work on both PCs and macs, right?

allenallen wrote:why do the alaskans NEVER woot? ANSWER ME!!!!

I was gonna say something nasty about Sarah Palin but I'll just give a straight answer: Woot only ships to the Continental US. It doesn't ship to Hawaii, Alaska, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, etc.

According to their site it has a lifetime warranty, and they pay shipping.

Worth noting, in case its as terrible as some of the reviews are saying.

m3talcore wrote:Good price for the size but there are already several 32GB drives on the egg for ~$40. (by patriot, verbatim, TDK, and Memorex) Personally I would spend a little extra for something faster and/or more reputable. They're actually listed on http://forre.st/storage because they are currently the cheapest flash drives in terms of GB per $.

I'm not sure about Patriot (or Centon) but I wouldn't buy drives from Verbatim, TDK or Memorex since they likely don't manufacture or even test their flash memory products. My guess is that they all buy from some generic Chinese manufacturer and simply stamp their logos on it. All of those companies made their name in magnetic media, i.e. cassette tapes and floppy disks, and probably never progressed from there. Even their optomagnetic products, i.e. CDs and DVDs, are likely manufactured by others. Verbatim has s good reputation though, and may indeed make their own DVDs. Memorex, on the other hand, is about as trustworthy as Polaroid.

channeldunlap wrote:According to their site it has a lifetime warranty, and they pay shipping.

Worth noting, in case its as terrible as some of the reviews are saying.

While that may be true, no amount of money can reimburse the loss of crucial data. SO make sure you don't delete the source files prematurely as you transport them on this drive. And always be mindful that these are not made for permanent storage.

At the very least, the company's warranty seems decent enough.

http://www.centon.com/company/policies/warranty

Good price. But I'll lose the cap, and my life will never be complete after that.

It seems like a good price, but quite some time ago I purchased a Centon MP3 player that had the words "USB 2.0" splashed all over it. I was thrilled to have a player that would let me get my music onto it much faster ... until I actually timed how long it took to put the music on. It was identical to the USB 1.1 MP3 players that I had.

Turns out Centon was using "USB 2.0" to refer to "Full-Speed USB 2.0" ... which is the same speed as USB 1.1, as opposed to "Hi-Speed USB 2.0", which is what I thought I was getting and is the 40x faster version that USB 2.0 is supposed to be all about.

The company never said a word in reply when I commented on this to them. I distrust companies that weasel-word and use terms to try to claim benefits that their products don't actually have. The specs on this item - especially "Interface: USB 2.0" and "Speed: Standard Speed" are giving me horrible flashbacks to that old MP3 player.

Perhaps some current owner can do a drive-speed test or otherwise demonstrate that Centon has left these bad old days behind them. Until then, for me, will avoid; will keep an eye out for USB3 flash drives instead (which rock on Hi-Speed USB2 ports, btw!)...

So how long does it takes to copy 32GB to it?

I found flash drive too slow over 8GB.

sdc100 wrote:Less than $1 per gb is not low enough for you? Keep in mind that this has a metal housing, not cheap plastic.

of course, you don't mention tax and shipping. or are you a special customer who doesn't have to pay "those" silly amounts.
oh yeah, i didn't know metal housing was THE feature of a flash drive

To any lawmaker reading: suspend the tax, especially on probably faulty merchandise

Bottom line: tax kills the deal!

TSOG wrote:So how long does it takes to copy 32GB to it?

32000MB/(5MB/s) = 6400s

6400s/(60s/min) = 106 minutes.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if it took 2-3 times longer than that. If you need to write 32GB's regularly you should really own an external harddrive. Flash drives are more for carrying around a bunch of junk that pretty much stays on there perpetually, with some exceptions.

If you'll excuse me I am off to mourn the death of basic math skills

allenallen wrote:why do the alaskans NEVER woot? ANSWER ME!!!!

Because Woot only ships to the lower 48 states. You'll notice nobody from Hawaii ever woots either. it's because they cant.

thegametech wrote:I've had this brand before. It was the 8 gig stick, but looked just like this one. My biggest complaint: The case actually came off at some point. And I'm not rough with my flash drives. Also, after the case came off, it was pron to damage... which it did get.

It damaged your pron? That's no good.

thegametech wrote:I've had this brand before. It was the 8 gig stick, but looked just like this one. My biggest complaint: The case actually came off at some point. And I'm not rough with my flash drives. Also, after the case came off, it was pron to damage... which it did get.

Same thing happened to me with my 2GB stick. The case is held on by a plastic post that goes through a hole at the end of the circuit board. Eventually, it pulls through the 2mm of board and detaches. It still works fine, but the casing comes off if I'm not careful.

integrator97 wrote:Sure, just plug it into your handy iPad USB port. ; ) oh... wait, there's not an app for that!

oh maaan

there's no app for the drivers to use this for my iPad??

alright, well then im going to pass



why wont my zune connect to my iPad either WHYYYYYY =)

chefbooyadee wrote:(USB flash drives are small external hard drives that can easily be connected to computer peripherals such as keyboards, mice, printers, and digital electronic spies to conveniently store, share and transfer your data.)

whut.

no, no, no, kind of, and no.

edit: remembered some printers accept USB flash drives

More like no, some, not really, some, no.

As in, it's not a spinning hard drive, there are quite a few keyboard designs with built in USB hubs(I own two, and it's pretty much a Mac thing), a VERY few mice come with built in flash storage but I've never seen one with a female USB port, Pictbridge enabled printers exist as you mentioned, and "digital electronic spies"...huh?