For carrying your data with you, there are several solutions, ranging from plain CD-Rs to Zip disks. With CD-R, one faces the problem of needing CD drives, and if data needs to be copied, a CD writer is required. Zip disks require special hardware to run on. Lately a new kind of media has emerged and is fast becoming popular for carrying small amounts of data: flash media. Flash cards have no moving parts, are small and do not lose their content when power is switched off.

Travel Flash is a small, lightweight USB 1.1 compliant device that has 16 MB built-in flash memory, and can accommodate other flash cards for additional memory. Four kinds of media are supported: Compact Flash, Smart Media, Multi Media and Secure Digital cards. Cards can be taken in and out while the device is powered on and Windows automatically detects them as removable drives.

Installation is simple and involves installing the driver software that is present on a small 8 cm CD, and plugging in the device on a USB port. Data transfer speed depends on the media that you are using, but is usually in the range of 150-350KB/s. Drivers are included for Windows 9x, 2000, ME and Mac OS 8.6 and above.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs