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Sony Micro Vault 128 MB USB Removable Storage Media

Sony Micro Vault 128 MB USB Removable Storage Media

List Price: $129.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sony is not the only
Review: Devices in this category are supposed to be ultra compact but this Sony unit is more bulky compared to Lexar's JumpDrive. They're both USB 2.0 but Sony's unit is more expensive. It's an easy choice -- for smaller and cheaper, go with Lexar.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works also in Linux
Review: For those of you who want to know, it is 100% compatible with Linux. It gets assigned to one of the SCSI hard-disk devices.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sony is not the only
Review: I am a dentist, not a programmer or hardware junkie and I purchased this product today and had it running in less than 10 minutes. My old Dell Optiplex accepted the disc and drivers without objection. This is definitely the way of the future for convienient, stable storage. Hooray!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'm hooked...
Review: I am a dentist, not a programmer or hardware junkie and I purchased this product today and had it running in less than 10 minutes. My old Dell Optiplex accepted the disc and drivers without objection. This is definitely the way of the future for convienient, stable storage. Hooray!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Nice Product...kinda...
Review: I ordered this to help me take my work with me wherever I go. I am very active and needed something I could carry with me without being a bulky hassle. But one thing Sony forgot to design was a clip of some sort so that it doesnt fall out of your pocket so smoothly that it's lost within the first day of posession. Granted, they do have a "keychain" hole on both ends of the device with which to attach it to somehting which is less likely to be misplaced. But it didnt even fit nicely on a thin half inch ring, much less the main ring of my keys, and they dont supply even a small nylon cord built for it's poorly designed holes. It's too expensive a gadget to have a poor tether assembly, and it's too easily adoptable by a passerby. The usefulness of the product however is very high. It just needs a better design.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works great with RedHat Linux
Review: I plugged it into the USB port of my RedHat Linux machine, ran the hardware browser to find the device, created a mount directory called /mnt/vault, entered the mount command: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/vault and it was immediately available for reading and writing just like another hard disk. Very fast read and write times. Great for moving files between work and home. Recommended. I understand it works with Windows too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Slick Design and Easy to Use
Review: I was very impressed with this little item. On Windows 2000 and XP, you don't need to install any software or drivers to use it, and using it is as simple as just inserting it into your USB port and, Voila!, you have a small, portable disk drive. Really invaluable for transporting files between work and home without the expense and mess of having zip drives on each system or carting around a bulky storage device. Even better for transporting files between Windows and Macintosh computers. No new software to learn as once inserted it just shows up on your system as another disk drive.

Finally, kudos to Sony for coming up with an attractive package. It's small enough to fit into my pocket and is darn cute! As another plus, the body is color coded to indicate what capacity the model has.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still works after going through the wash!
Review: I've had mine for about a year. No real comments on that, other than that they should ship it with a string to attach the detachable cap to the main unit. I'm surprised I haven't lost the cap yet.

My big point, however, is that I accidentally put mine through the wash last week. It survived just fine. For that, I give it 5 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very tough little device
Review: Okay, first off the device is handy to have. The package states you don't need to install drivers and different people have reported different results. I've had no problems plugging into Windows XP (Home and Pro) or Windows 2000. Windows 98 was a little mixed, second edition seemed to do okay but earlier versions didn't seem to want to play without a little additional help. Depending on your technical skills (or lack of) this might be a problem. If you run Windows 95 or NT, forget it. Linux fans running more recent distros won't have any problems.

After all of that, I must add a word of caution. If you do not undock your USB drive properly, you run the risk of toasting it. Something gets modified and you forever run the risk of having any version of Windows detect it as a security device. Don't ask me how to fix it because I haven't been able to and Sony had no idea what to do. I had bought a 256 Micro Vault and had this happen after a couple months (but in that instance it was undocked properly and it still died). I bought a 128 meg Micro Vault to see if I could "force" the same thing to happen.

Long story short - YUP. So there seems to be a problem if the unit is not removed properly - meaning you have to click on the little icon on your system tray and tell it to "stop" the device. Basically this lets your computer know the USB drive is going to be unplugged. You might get away with not doing it, but the Micro Vault seems prone to some sort of internal damage and after that happens, you won't be able to use it on any computer as a USB storage device. All you will get are prompts asking for drivers for your new USB "security device." At this point, there is no known fix and you will be regulated to trying to get your money back. My recommendation is get a USB drive - they are so darn handy to have ... but avoid the Sony brand until they fix whatever is going wrong with their various Micro Vault models.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Things to think about
Review: Okay, first off the device is handy to have. The package states you don't need to install drivers and different people have reported different results. I've had no problems plugging into Windows XP (Home and Pro) or Windows 2000. Windows 98 was a little mixed, second edition seemed to do okay but earlier versions didn't seem to want to play without a little additional help. Depending on your technical skills (or lack of) this might be a problem. If you run Windows 95 or NT, forget it. Linux fans running more recent distros won't have any problems.

After all of that, I must add a word of caution. If you do not undock your USB drive properly, you run the risk of toasting it. Something gets modified and you forever run the risk of having any version of Windows detect it as a security device. Don't ask me how to fix it because I haven't been able to and Sony had no idea what to do. I had bought a 256 Micro Vault and had this happen after a couple months (but in that instance it was undocked properly and it still died). I bought a 128 meg Micro Vault to see if I could "force" the same thing to happen.

Long story short - YUP. So there seems to be a problem if the unit is not removed properly - meaning you have to click on the little icon on your system tray and tell it to "stop" the device. Basically this lets your computer know the USB drive is going to be unplugged. You might get away with not doing it, but the Micro Vault seems prone to some sort of internal damage and after that happens, you won't be able to use it on any computer as a USB storage device. All you will get are prompts asking for drivers for your new USB "security device." At this point, there is no known fix and you will be regulated to trying to get your money back. My recommendation is get a USB drive - they are so darn handy to have ... but avoid the Sony brand until they fix whatever is going wrong with their various Micro Vault models.


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