Windows 8 Is a $7.49 64 GB Flash Drive Safe for System Imaging?

[Peterr]

Hello
I received a postcard from a credit card company with an offer for a 64 GB flash drive whose brand is a well known pc retail store. It is $7.49 if the credit card advertised is used.
I don't think I can mention the store but my question is, would you consider this to be a safe drive?
Secondly, could I image my system to it? My images are about 12 GBs.
Thank you
Peter

 

[davidhk129]

I have a Win 8.1 Pro laptop.
I created a Recovery Drive into a Lexar flash drive 16 GB.

For that reason I would say yes.

$7.49 for a 64 GB flash drive is indecently low. Part of the marketing tactic of the credit card company, I suppose.

 

[Peterr]

I appreciate the information about backing up to your drive. I just did not know if one needed more than a flash drive -thank you.
I agree that the price is low enough as to entice me. I guess they figure people will put more purchases on their card to more than compensate for the deal they made with the store. The store in turn profits with more customers.
I always believed you get what you pay for but I think I'll give it a try.

 

[strollin]

At that low of a price, it's a throw away item if it doesn't work or whatever. Personally though, I don't trust flash drives for backups, I'd much rather use an external hdd.

 

[badrobot]

It's a good deal. So far the lowest I've seen for a 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive is $27.99. Whether it works or not depends on how you trust the brand. But with that price, no harm getting it.

I only use USB flashdive as a recovery/rescue media. My image backups (for 4 systems) are all on a separate hard drive in separate partitions.



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[Peterr]

This is a 2.0 usb drive.
I use flash drives for my data which I keep on two of them so the odds of the pcs and the 2 flash drives going at the same time are slim. If one goes I replace it immediately. I also image my system to two HDDs..
For that cost I will get it but not depend upon it.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

I say good deal, and yeah not knowing the brand its hard to say if these will be good or not.
If it was like a sandisk or PNY I say good deal as both PNY and Sandisk make great portable drives

 

[badrobot]

This is a 2.0 usb drive.
I use flash drives for my data which I keep on two of them so the odds of the pcs and the 2 flash drives going at the same time are slim. If one goes I replace it immediately. I also image my system to two HDDs..
For that cost I will get it but not depend upon it.

still a good deal. The last Lexar 8GB USB 2.0 I bought (just last week) was $7.99.
I am gonna use it as USB recovery media.

 

[Peterr]

Not knowing if mentioning the store is a violation, I can only say the markings on the drive say MMMMM CCCCCC 64 GB 2.0 usb.
I guess they get a bunch of wholesale drives and promote the credit card and hope one will buy more goods while in the store. I doubt they could afford to be of the high end quality of PNY or SanDisK.
As I said, I will use it but not depend on it. I A few trial runs would not hurt either.

I wonder if I should format it as FAT or NTFS?
My guess is that Win 8.1 would tell me or I should go with NTFS.

 

[badrobot]

Not knowing if mentioning the store is a violation, I can only say the markings on the drive say MMMMM CCCCCC 64 GB 2.0 usb.
I guess they get a bunch of wholesale drives and promote the credit card and hope one will buy more goods while in the store. I doubt they could afford to be of the high end quality of PNY or SanDisK.
As I said, I will use it but not depend on it. I A few trial runs would not hurt either.

I wonder if I should format it as FAT or NTFS?
My guess is that Win 8.1 would tell me or I should go with NTFS.

Do yo already have the credit card in promo or you are signing up for it just because of the USB flashdrive?

Just asking because it's a known fact that getting a store credit card just to avail of a one time discount can severely bruise you credit score. But if you don't have any plans of getting a loan/mortgage etc. in 3 years or so, then it doesn't matter. Just a thought.



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[Peterr]

Sorry to be vague. I have a credit card which appears to be in alliance with a retail store. They are telling users they can get this drive if they use the credit card. It goes no further.

 

[seekermeister]

Don't know what, but there is a catch somewhere.

 

[Peterr]

Would you format this drive as FAT or NTFS or will Win 8.1 tell me? I ask because of the size if that makes any difference.

 

[seekermeister]

Not exactly certain, but from this article:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/convert-a-hard-disk-or-partition-to-fat32-format


I guess that the type of partition to use would depend on how you intend to use the drive. Particularly depending on the size of the files to be placed on it.

 

[Peterr]

Thanks for the referral. I think I will format it NTFS as I will be loading more than 4 GB at times. I read another article which said , "It does not matter, " but never continued with the comment. Maybe Win 8.1 tells you which to do..

>>I just had an after thought. This64 bit drive should help with Ready Boost.

 

[seekermeister]

I guess that is one way to go, but I've never used it much, because I've never seen an improvement. I just plugged in a 32GB 3.0 flash drive and set it to be dedicated, thinking that it would use more than just 4GBs as is the max with the sliding scale setting, but it didn't increase the amount RAM available, according to CoreTemp, and I also noticed that the current amount of RAM being used is slightly greater than before setting it up. Also looking at the drive in the file manager, the readyboost file is labeled at only 4GBs, so there is no point in dedicating it to readyboost.

 

[Peterr]

I'm glad you corrected my thinking as it saves me trouble etc. with Ready Boost.