Rating: 
Summary: Cheap Plastic Makes a Junky USB Drive
Review: I owned this product, the SanDisk 256 Cruzer Mini, for literally 2 hours. It was nice and small but quite chinsey and made of plastic. Excited, I brought it home and I inserted it into the USB ports on the front of my computer and it got stuck. It wouldn't come out. To make matters worse there isn't really any area to grip the drive and pull it out without squishing the contents. After 10-15 minutes of tugging to get it out of the USB port, I had to break out the heavy artillery and get a pair of plyers. First gently I tried to pull it out using cloths around the drive, then masking tape around the plyers, then when that failed, brute force. After 30 minutes of trying to pull it out of the drive, the plastic USB Drive case broke in numerous places, the piece that attaches to the necklace/holder broke, and the USB connector slipped out of its cheap plastic stick of gum like container (the small clips that hold the usb connector and board inside broke). It still worked (barely) but it was in shambles. I promptly returned it to the place where I bought it for a full refund 2 hours after I bought it. JUNK. Don't buy it, its not rugged and will not last very long even under light use. I wouldn't trust my data to anything that could essentially break by a 1 foot fall on the floor. Perhaps their new Titianium will hold up much better, though I'll never by a ThumbDrive they make ever again.
Rating: 
Summary: Keep on cruzin'
Review: I just got a new computer, and wanted to move some personal files from my old computer to the new as effortlessly as possible. I've heard about USB Flash drives, particularly about ease of use and convenient small size, so I decided to give this one a try.I had several reasons for selecting the SanDisk Cruzer, rather than any other flash drive: (1) it is made by SanDisk, one of the biggest companies for making movable storage products, (2) the price was good, and (3) it looked pretty good, compared to some other more neon products. With respect to its capacity (256 MB), that's huge! Remember the days when entire computer hard-drives had 256 MB? :) Enough to move tons of word processing files, hundreds of digital images, and dozens of music files. If you aren't planning to move large files and money is a consideration, you can certainly downgrade to one of the smaller Cruzers. I must admit I've used this only a few times, but I have been moving huge amounts of files each time. So far, no problem. My Windows XP machine recognized the drive immediately after inserting it into the USB drive. The computer warned me that the device is high speend (2.0 USB), while my USB port is slow (1.1 USB). But it worked just fine... I suppose slower than it would with a 2.0 device, but I didn't notice. Files were copied onto the drive very quickly, probably about as fast as writing a CD-R. Then I moved the files to my Mac (running Mac OS X 10.3, and with a 2.0 USB drive), and it recognized the drive without any problem. I copied the files onto my hard-drive, erased them from the flash drive, and that was the end of it. No drivers to install on either of the machines, no formatting, etc. I notice that some reviewers have been having problems, and I suspect it has to do with their operating systems, and not the flash drive itself. Stylistically speaking, the flash drive is a good-looking piece of equipment. Smaller than you probably imagine (about the size of my thumb), silver, has a cap for the USB end. It comes with a nifty neck cord which you can attach to the drive and then carry it around your neck (?). The cord is in two parts, so that you can detach the drive from around your neck without having to take off the cord. Also, two extra caps are included, for when the original gets lost (I suppose). When capping, there is a satisfying click and the cap seems very secure, so losing the cap is probably unlikely in the first place. That's all I have to say. So far, so good. If using a Mac, remember to move the drive into the Trash before taking it out of the computer.
Rating:
Summary: Survived Laundry
Review: I bought this thing last year during Thanksgiving. One day I forgot to check my pockets and dropped my jeans with the Cruzer mini inside into the laundry. While moving clothes to the drier, it fell down. I was scared that I had lost all my documents inside. I cleaned it with a towel and plugged it in... voila... all documents were intact.. Certainly a great product because of all the transfers we could make without using CDs and for presentations.
- Mohan
Rating:
Summary: Of course it's plastic
Review: I've used one of these for quite a while and have exposed it to harsh conditions with no failures. Of course it will get scratched up if you put it in a pocket with you're keys... as will most anything else... and of course it's made of plastic like most of the other ones. (If you don't like plastic, they just happen to make a titanium version also) Regardless, it's been highly reliable and easier to plug in to tight spaces because of its slimmer than average size. (It even fits those silly side profile Dell front USB ports)
Rating:
Summary: Don't use CruzerLock !!
Review: The Cruzer Mini 256 works fine, but I got in the following problem : I tested the CruzerLock software and I forgot the password. Even if you erase everything on the card, the password is not erased. According to Sandisk technical support, the password is stored in a secure area and you need the old one to retrieve it. So, if you forget your password, you will NEVER be able to use the protection ! How nice .
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Concept, Poor Execution
Review: As much as I like the slim design of the drive(it is the only model I know that will fit on the front ports of my computer at work) and the way it looks, I won't get another of their products. I read some bad reviews before I got it, but not many enough. After a month and a half I deleted a bunch of files, but they became zero-length files and wouldn't go away. 3 of my programs all corrupted(I'm in a C class.) In frustration, I gave it another try and reformatted and put back on everything that was on there. It worked for a couple more weeks and then Windows said"This drive is not formatted. Would you like to format now?" That was when my expensive drive became an electronics experiment for me. I don't want a replacement from SanDisk, I'm just gonna get a different one, the wasted money isn't worth the lost data. Luckily, I regularly back my data up!(A hint to all)
Rating:
Summary: 4+ months of frequent use totally trouble free
Review: I've used my Mini Cruzer since November completely trouble free. In fact, I almost never leave home without it. I've used it on Windows XP/ 98/2000, and Mac OS X without incident. I almost exclusively use it to transfer files from my PC to Macs, which works perfectly. One caveat is that you MUST leave the drive formatted in FAT (not FAT32) to do this. I would recommend it to anyone who frequently uses multiple computers (i.e. students) or needs to move files across operating systems. It's completely eliminated my reliance on irritating zip drives/disks or oversized e-mail attachments. From the other reviews it sounds like they might be pretty hit-or-miss so maybe I got lucky. Still I wouldn't hesitate to buy one again or recommend it. It's saved [me] more times that I can count.
Rating:
Summary: What I Like the Best about ScanDisk Drive!
Review: It is a unit about the size of a 1/2 pack of gum. It actually measures 2 & 3/4 inches long, and 3/4 inches wide and 1/8 of an inch thick (measurements for you Americans). But hold on, it holds 176 floppy disks.
We first bought the Lexar jump drive, and loved it. However, on our laptop, because the USB ports were so close together, I had to remove my wireless keyboard. Not with the scandisk drive, it slim design fit with all my equipment
The ScanDisk also installed automatically, but did not put itself on my SEND TO menu like the Lexar jump drive. I had to put it on the SEND TO menu myself. It did give me a message about using an older type USB port on one of my older laptops. However, the unit still worked flawlessly on all my machines. I'm selling my zip drives on eBay this month. I now use the ScanDisk drive on all my client's machines too. Remember, no driver installation on Windows XP.
The ScanDisk drive worked better for a road warrior like me due to its ability to squeeze into smaller areas than the Lexar jump drive.
It appears like another hard drive (E drive). So I just open "My Documents" folder, hold down the ctrl key, select the files I want, click right mouse, go to SEND TO, then send to E drive. Instant backup! One of my favorite units to date, and absolutely no problems. Gina Novelle
Exclusive Markets
Rating: 
Summary: Cruzer Great but Cruzerlock SW SUCKS!
Review: The Cruzer mini works great for me. I've used it several months now. But the Cruzerlock software stinks. First it got corrupted and it wouldn't run. I didn't lose data, but I couldn't get to my files for a day - this happened on exactly the same day they were updating the Sandisk website and took the install download away. Today, I got an error while launching cruzerlock which is "can't find password from CIS". Apparently the Cruzer has lost my password and when I type in my correct password it cannot recognize it and all my files remain locked. I'm very upset and on the phone with tech support now. This could be tragic if I needed a Powerpoint file right now for a presentation. So don't use Cruzerlock? Can't take my chances if I lose the Cruzer, too much confidential stuff onboard. So I'm upset.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product. Nice Design.Little Size. Good Perfomance.
Review: I think this product is excellent in some many ways: 1) You won't have problems using it with other USB devices, because it's very thin, so you won't need to unplug other connections from your PC or notebook to use it (even if you machine has USB stacked ports).
2) When you are using it, you can plug his cap behind it. This characteristic it's a very useful improve over other similar products. So it's very difficult to loose it.
3) Moreover, when you plug its cap behind it, you will increase light display when unit is in use
(this light shows you when unit is working -ready/writing data-)
4) In spite of, if you loose its cap, this product comes with two additional caps. In fact, its 3 caps are different in colors (light gray, light blue and light green).
5) In addition, it comes with a necklace if you want to use in that way (optional)
6) It has nice design, color, and performance.
7) I had used it with W2000 and it works in an excellent way. No drivers required, only plug and play.
8) You can access and reproduce directly from it, music, video and other programs, so it isn't necessary to move data from USB Drive to PC to use it.
9) It has a very reasonable price.
10) It already comes formatted in FAT mode, but you can change it to FAT32 or NTFS, this choose will depend of what kind / version of Operative System you have or use. Because of that, I think this device works fine and it was what I was expecting of this kind of drive. I hope these suggestions will help you to learn more about this product.
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