16 GB mega-memory flash drives now a reality.

16 GB mega-memory flash drives now a reality. Flash Drive Direct first to launch them into the promotional logo marketplace.The $16 Billion dollar US promotional logo products industry is getting a 16GB boost. Flash Drive Direct is now offering 16 GB hand held flash drive memory designs.“We only expect this upward memory trend to continue,” states John Graham, North American director of Flash Drive Direct. “ This business was mostly 32 MB promotional give-aways 2 years ago, now the sale of the flash drives into the US business economy is trending towards much larger memory drives. A year ago, 1GB was the upper end, 6 months ago we hit 8GB and now we are at 16GB. We can expect to see 32GB within the next 6 months”

This technical breakthrough is made possible by a marriage of new high memory chip sets from Samsung and a unique PVC molding process for the housing.

Instead of stacking a series of 2Gb chips in sequence to create larger memory there is now a single 16GB Samsung Chip. This allows the design of the housing to be flexible and innovative.Flash Drive Direct is now Windows ReadyBoost deliverable.Adding system memory (typically referred to as RAM) is often the best way to improve a PC’s performance, since more memory means more applications are ready to run without accessing the hard drive. However, upgrading memory can be difficult and costly, and some machines have limited memory expansion capabilities, making it impossible to add RAM.Windows Vista introduced Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system this past year. It means the user can use flash memory, such as that on a (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional hard-wired memory.The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows Super Fetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness.Windows ReadyBoost is simple to use. When a removable Flash Drive memory device is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, the user is asked if they want to use this device to speed up system performance. The user can choose to allocate part of a USB drive’s memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.
Flash Drive Direct is one of the first suppliers to offer this to the ad specialty marketplace.

64GB solid state drives available in Dell laptops.

Samsung Ships SATA II Flash Drives to Dell
The 64GB solid state drives will be available in Dell and Alienware laptops soon.

Samsung Electronics has begun shipping a flash memory-based solid state disk drive (SSD) that offers better performance than many of the flash drives currently available, the company said.
The 64GB drive has a SATA II interface that can support data reading at speeds of 100M Bps (bytes per second) and writing at 80M Bps. That makes it 60 percent faster than SATA I drives of the same type and two to five times faster than conventional hard-disk drives, according to Samsung.
SSDsuse flash memoryrather than magnetic storage, which means faster reading and writing of data, lower power consumption and zero noise. They've been around for several years although it is only recently, after flash memory chip prices fell, that they have become practical for use in laptop computers.
The drives were announced back in the fall, when Samsung started supplying samples of the drives to PC makers. Commercial versions of the drive are now available and will be offered as options on some Dell and Alienware laptops in the coming weeks, said Samsung. Prices were not announced.
Samsung is also planning to target the enterprise server market and other applications that demand high-speed data transfer.
Despite their advantages over hard disk drives, SSDs are only taking off slowly because they are much more expensive. To get around this problem Samsung showed a 128GB SSD based onMLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash, at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's a cheaper but not as powerful or efficient version of flash chip than the SLC (single level cell) used in most SSDs drives until now. The SLC-type memory chips last about 10 times as long as MLC chips

Samsung has also been supplying flash chips to flash drive designer flash drive direct.

And the Geek shall inherit the earth.....Flash Drives dead? MEMS and Nanoprobes next?

This is for the trully geeky........new technology will replace flash drives in the next few years.......Nano probes which can produce 100 GB's to 1000 Gb (known a terabyte for the geek in all of us) ..which will be the size or smaller than current flash drives....strap in Buck Rogers.

Will MEMS + nanoprobes succeed flash memory scaling?
Feb. 5, 2008 - With flash process technology scaling approaching its limits, along comes Nanochip, a developer of MEMS silicon data storage chips, with a technology that does not use lithography in its manufacture. The company recently completed (Jan. 22) a $14M financing round supported in part by Intel Capital and JK&B Capital, and aims to complete development of its first prototypes later this year, start design verification testing and limited customer sampling in 2009, and begin production in 2010, CEO Gordon Knight told WaferNEWS.
The company's first products are expected to exceed 100GB/chipset, reaching terabytes in the future. Because Nanochip's MEMS-based probe storage technology is mechanical in nature, i.e., with moving parts, its access times are in the millisecond range -- too slow for programmed storage. Instead, the company is targeting NAND and disk drives. "We're going after large database storage, i.e., servers, laptops, USB drives, and eventually, cell phones, when we get our costs down," explained Knight.


Currently, Nanochip has four fabs around the world working on the prototype project (two partners in the MEMS sector and two in storage media), and talks are ongoing with potential production partners. While not able to identify partners, Knight did note that the MEMS-based storage chip must be produced on 200mm wafers.

The MEMS chip itself is an ~150mm2 die based on a 3-wafer construction (see figure): a CMOS substrate containing all the electronics to control the chip and provide error correction, a substrate that contains the suspended media moving platform; and a sealing cap wafer. Each die has ~8000 cantilevers and AFM probe tips, with a single AFM probe tip on the end of each cantilever. The probe tips are grown on top of the CMOS substrate and can be raised and lowered onto the media platform, which moves in raster fashion in the X-Y directions. The media layer (i.e., recording layer) is continuous, and not patterned.

Structure of Nanochip's MEMS-based advanced memory device.
Because the media moves under suspension, there is no contact, and hence no wearout of the media, according to Knight. The probe tips, however, do contact the media. A servo controller moves the tips down into contact with the media as necessary to complete read/write operations, typically, only several hundred tips are moved at a time. Knight maintains that proper engineering of the tip material and the media surface chemistry has enabled tip life to be extended to allow very high operational usage over many years. "The media does cycle more than 10 million times and we are still testing its ultimate lifetime," he said. "The read/write/erase rate is similar to that of a disk drive in that direct overwrite is used, thus eliminating block erase issues that flash has."

Flash Drive get big hit from Ready Boost

Flash Drive Direct launches line of 16GB hand held flash drives for the promotional products market.The $16 Billion dollar (annual sales) US promotional products industry is getting a 16GB boost. Flash Drive Direct is now offering Windows Readyboost 16 GB hand held flash drive units.“We only expect this upward memory trend to continue,” states John Graham, North American director of Flash Drive Direct. “ This business was mostly 32 MB promotional give-aways 2 years ago, now the sale of the flash drives into the US business economy is trending towards much larger memory drives. A year ago, 1GB was the upper end, 6 months ago we hit 8GB and now we are at 16GB. We can expect to see 32GB within the next 6 months”Flash Drive Direct is now Windows ReadyBoost deliverable.Adding system memory (typically referred to as RAM) is often the best way to improve a PC's performance, since more memory means more applications are ready to run without accessing the hard drive. However, upgrading memory can be difficult and costly, and some machines have limited memory expansion capabilities, making it impossible to add RAM.Windows Vista introduced Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system this past year. It means the user can use flash memory, such as that on a (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional hard-wired memory.The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows Super Fetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness.Windows ReadyBoost is simple to use. When a removable Flash Drive memory device is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, the user is asked if they want to use this device to speed up system performance. The user can choose to allocate part of a USB drive's memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.Flash Drive Direct is one of the first suppliers to offer this to the ad specialty marketplace.CONTACT INFORMATION604-272-8809.Vancouver Canada/Blaine Washingtoninfo (at) flashdrivedirect (dot) com

Usb wi-fi flash drive connector really works. Impressive

Well.....

to all who care...here I am in Maui on Super Tuesday....heading home in 2 days.........I have not thought about work a lot but I did come across a great new USB tool. Netgears USB 2.0 wifi connector WG111........we did not have a line into our Hawaii hotel room so we went to Radio Shack and they had this very cool device.....plug it in and voila...!! a wireless connection from my laptop. As is sip very strong Kona coffee and wonder if I tan or snorkel today...I find I can surf the net and check mail easily with this device.......When I get back to the office I am going to research this as an additon to our Flash Drive Direct collection.........really great stuff.....

John

Windows Vista Ready Boost explained to a normal human

Dear All,

Not quite yet on the plane and thought I'd tell you about our line of Vista Ready Boost Flash Drives...

Point 1 is the simple explanation of what is is and what it does.......Point 2 is for the technogeek who really wants to know about this stuff and is often seen lurking in the memory and hardware section of your local Web Geek store and works on the weekend for The Geek squad...pick your poison.

1) Windows ready boost simplified....There are certain flash drives that have the ability to increase your computers Memory (RAM Random Access Memory) by the size of their memory. Ie if you have a ready boost flash drive such as those pictured here, simply by plugging them into a PC (not Mac) that has Vista as an O/S (operating system) it will increase your computers speed allowing for complex memory hungry tasks (photoshop, spamming, surfing porn and wiping your tracks so the boss doesn't catch you) by the amount of the memory of your flash drive.

Really simple: If you have 2 GB of RAM (memory used to perform immediate tasks) on your laptop and it has Windows Vista on it, if you plug in your 4 GB ready boost Flash Drive then you will have 6 GB of RAM (memory)......simple...and how cool is that...?

Well I am off for one last Fabutan before I go to Hawaii..........I wonder if its too late to get liposuction...?

PS.....This month get a FREE 4 GB windows ready boost flash drive just for selling some Flash Drive Direct drives.

anyways...what follows is the Geek explanation......go for it..

Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory (NAND memory devices) for caching allows Windows Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching is applied to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLLs. Flash devices are typically slower than the hard drive for sequential I/O, so to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic to recognize large, sequential read requests and then allows these requests to be serviced by the hard drive.[2]
When a compatible device is plugged in, the Windows AutoPlay dialog offers an additional option to use the flash drive to speed up the system; an additional "ReadyBoost" tab is added to the drive's properties dialog where the amount of space to be used can be configured.[3] 250 MB to 4 GB of flash memory can be assigned. ReadyBoost encrypts, with AES-128, and compresses all data that is placed on the flash device; Microsoft has stated that a 2:1 compression ratio is typical, so that a 4 GB cache could contain upwards of 8 GB of data.[1]
According to Jim Allchin, for future releases of Windows, ReadyBoost will be able to use spare RAM on other networked Windows Vista PCs.[4]
For a device to be compatible and useful it must conform to the following requirements:
The capacity of the removable media must be at least 256 MB (250 after formatting)
Devices larger than 4 GB will have only 4 GB used for ReadyBoost
The device should have an access time of 1ms or less
The device must be capable of 2.5 MB/s read speeds for 4 KB random reads spread uniformly across the entire device and 1.75 MB/s write speeds for 512 KB random writes spread uniformly across the device
The device must have at least 235 MB of free space
NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 are supported
The initial release of ReadyBoost supports one device
The recommended amount of memory to use for Windows ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed in your computer

[edit] Performance
[1]. A system with 512 MB of RAM (the minimum for Windows Vista) can see significant gains from ReadyBoost. In one test case speeding up an operation from 11.7 seconds to 2 seconds (increasing physical memory from 512 MB to 1GB reduced it to 0.8 seconds). [2]. Systems with 1 GB or more do not show a significant effect on tests to date.
The core idea of ReadyBoost is that a flash drive has a much faster seek time (less than 1 millisecond), allowing it to satisfy the requests fairly quickly compared to a hard drive when booting or reading certain system files. It also leverages the inherent parallelism of having two sources from which to read data. Unfortunately, low-cost flash drives are slow in terms of sequential reads and writes, compared to modern desktop hard drives -- 7200 rpm hard drives can sustain 60-80 MB/s, which is 6 to 8 times faster than the 10 MB/s sustained by the fastest low-cost flash drives [3]. The only advantages these flash drives have are a seek time of around 1ms, compared to the 8-12ms typical on modern SATA drives.High-cost ($1,000-$50,000) solid state memories currently have random sustained external throughput up to 3 GB/s (TMS RamSan) and latency as low as 0.003 ms (Violin 1010) [4].
On laptop computers the performance shifts more in the favor of flash memory, laptop memory being priced relatively higher than that for desktop systems, and with many laptops using relatively slow 4200 rpm and 5400 rpm hard drives. Additionally, on a laptop, the ReadyBoost caching can reduce hard drive access, allowing the hard drive to spin down for increased battery life [5]. Additionally, because of the nature of the power management typically enabled during mobile use of a laptop it is a more power efficient way of increasing equipment productivity.
The performance of NAND flash caching (in the form of Intel's Turbo Memory technology) has also been called into question by some computer manufacturers [6].

[edit] Note

Flash drive dojo competes in Hawaii Ironman for 10th time

Dear All,

I am taking a break from the chores at home and a busy business to participate in the upcoming Hawaii Ironman......as you can see by most recent training pictures I am carbing up and getting plenty of rest before the big event......

I have done this every year for the past 10 but each year have suffered a pulled groin or the heartbreak of psoraisis (if this is the right spelling let me know) ........this year I am really going to try and get off the starting line......

I did come fully equipped with my Flash Drive Direct MP4 and 4 Gb flash drive..........If I don't get off the starting line at least I will have a number of Bob Marley tunes to listen to.........hmmm....did I pack my Jimmy Buffet....?

Anyways ...........I will try and post while I am away.........then again............enjoy

News: SD Card doubles as Flash Drive eliminates card reader

USB manufacturer Flash Drive Direct has released the first SD card that doubles as a USB flash drive, or vice versa. One end of the card has the connectors of a regular USB 2.0 interface while the other end has the same interface of a regular Secure Digital, making it compatible with many digital cameras and PDAs.

The Double Card is touted as the perfect storage for eliminating the need to bring along a SD card reader. Initially, the 1 GB version will wholesale for around 14$

Samsung introduces tiny 16 GB chip

Samsungs new solid state drive comes in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB sizes

The tiny Samsung chip hits 16GB, it is used by flash drive direct

At this year's CES, Samsung chips are all about mobility. Samsungs CPUs will be fuelling the latest flashdrives, desktops and laptops, while its Ultra Mobile Platform chips will be powering UMPCs, UMDs and MIDs.

Alongside its processor technology, Samsung has also officially announced its new solid state drive (SSD). Here is the first picture of it. As you can see, it's about the size of a US penny and uses NAND flash memory chips for storage.

Samsung says that the chip weighs 0.6g (lighter than the average water droplet, apparently) and is 400 times smaller than a traditional 1.8-inch HDD. And, of course, there are no moving parts.
The Samsung chip is capable of read speeds of 40MB/s and write speeds of 30MB/s.

The chip is Ideal for flash drives, smartphones (and the anticipated flood of mobile internet devices in 2008), NAND chips can be combined into 2GB, 4GB, 8GB or 16GB versions.

Who is Flash Drive Direct?

Dear promotional products distributors distributors,

I really wish I hadn't chosen http://www.flashdrivedirect.com/ for our name when we chose it last year. At first, lot of people were concerned that we sold direct to the end user etc. http://www.flashdrivedirect.com/ 's mantra is decidely the opposite.

We go out of our way to state loud and clear on our site and literature we DO NOT sell direct. We have been long time members (in other business's) of the PPAI (15 years) and really like what PPAI is all about. We value the supply chain ethics and work hard at what we do.Our offering is a little different from the other flash drive suppliers and is geared to true distributors needs.

1) http://www.flashdrivedirect.com/ sells over 150 styles...each style is the same price at each level of memory.

2) Each price includes eveything...Logo (3 colors 2 placements....this includes laser and screening...we don't pad print as it rubs off), lanyard, giftbox, all shipping, paperwork etc...in fact the ONLY charges other than the stated price is a $75 net art set up on orders under 500 pieces and the courier from LA or Seattle to your door.......ie 30 cents a piece to get 100 units from Seattle to New York City. Simple.......

3) We only use Samsung and Hynix componentsThe other thing is we encourage fun........in fact we like our customers...we talk to them (not just email)...we make connections and we look to be part of your world........We hope you take the time to check us out. Thanks Flash Drive Direct 604-272-8809 PPAI 275584 UPIC LOYAL

Flash Drive Direct gets RoHS and Wee compliancy

USB Digital Frames and Flash Drive Direct to be the first manufacturer to the promotional products industry to completely meet or exceed ROHS compliancy.


USB Digital Frames and Flash Drive Direct to be the first manufacturer to the promotional products industry to completely meet or exceed ROHS compliancy.“ The corporate and promotional products industry is awash in poisonous junk” states John Graham, head of USB Digital Frames and Flash Drive Direct. “ It is a very large (16 billion dollars USD) almost unseen and totally unregulated industry that sells the corporate world everything from soup to nuts with a corporate branding (logo) on it. Until very recently there were few companies willing to spend the extra money to ensure that their products were not harming the environment.

We decided to do something about it.”That something was to bring their standards up to both ROHS compliancy and to WEEE standard for both their Flash Drive line ( Flash Drive Direct) and their digital frame division (USB Digital Frames). USB Digital Frames and Flash Drive Direct are now fully compliant with their products and vertically integrated only with WEEE certified plants.

What is ROHS and WEEE ROHS is the Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment 2002/95/EC (commonly referred to as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS) which was adopted in February 2003 by the EU (European Union).

The RoHS directive took effect on 1 July 2006, and is required to be enforced and become law throughout the EU. This directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. It is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) 2002/96/EC which sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic e-waste.

“As usual, the Europeans, Japanese and Canadians are well ahead of the US when it comes to environmental issues.RoHS was an off shoot of the Kyoto Accord set forth in 1997 and signed by some 120 countries (The USA being a signatory hold-out). “ states Graham. “We watched the European business model burst forth as they adopted stricter environmental standards while the lower US environmental standards actually retarded business growth and development. We quickly saw that by offering ROHS and WEEE compliant products we not only were helping the environment but were encouraging growth in our business. The positive results are obvious”.

How to Sell Flash Drives to the Promotional Marketplace.

How to Sell Flash Drives to the Promotional Marketplace.



Please don’t take this as an insult to your sales skills or a reflection of my ability to be right 98% of the time. Its just that I have worked both sides of the business and with so many things to sell, it always took me while to learn how to sell something new.



I remember when Pima cotton first came out, I described it as a fabrication designed by Puma and this was the wicking version. Doh!So I figured a sharing a few basics bits of knowledge about selling any Flash Drive (especially our Flash Drive Direct drives) wouldn’t hurt.......



1) What is a flash drive: A flash drive is a memory device for storing data. This includes, files, word docs, pictures, video. ANYTHING that can go on a computer can go on a flash drive.



2) It has NO MOVING parts: Beauty eh? No moving parts means no break downs.....no blue screen of death. Your PC and Mac has a Hard Drive which spins around at about a jillion revolutions per minute and has an arm (just like a turntable arm) that retrieves the data. Compare the 2....1) never breaks down......The other) will break down...it just depends on when.



3) A flash drive has NAND Flash memory? Who cares! To sell it you don’t need to know this....what you need to know is that there are 2 chips in each drive.....a)the memory chip and b) controller chip. What is important to know is that the chips are THE BEST. The only reliable mass produced chips are made by SAMSUNG and HYNIX. All of our drives are made from these chips. If you buy a drive that is not made with Samsung or Hynix you are buying crap. Simple!



4) Tier 1, USB 2.0, recycled memory, Tier 1, Windows Vista and MAC ready....what does this mean and why you should care?Simply put....a reliable quality flash drive MUST have USB 2.0 (this is a faster speedier chip) Tier 1 (means it is professional grade) Windows Vista and Mac ready...(This means the drive will run with these operating systems.....if it doesn’t have this designation you may have problems) Recycled/re-used/Tier 2 Memory: Personally I don’t know ( or want to know) any supplier who will tell you they sell this. Why? Because it is crap.....It will fail and no one will tell you....”Buy mine...its junk”.



So why do you need to worry about this? Call it what you will.... recycled memory, whatever.... it is basically “factory seconds” that didn’t make the Quality Control standards. They are often sold on a “Gray Market”. So how do you know? 1) Ask...2) The Price....Chip prices are commodity driven and prices go up and down....all reputable flash drive makers (such as us) price the wholesale according to the chip prices that day. If you are buying a 100 pieces of a 1GB for $10-12 dollars (as I write this) then it is likely you have Tier 1 USB 2.0 Samsung/Hynix chips......If someone says you can have it for $5 ......walk away, it is probably junk.



The emotional sell, the reasons why your clients should buy Flash Drives?



Now that we have all of the geeky techy junk out of the way...trust me I could have gone on and on...and on.......you don’t sell on technical issues do you...(its just a good thing to know)?.....you sell on emotion...you must present a good reason for someone to buy what you have to sell.........fortunately Flash Drives actually have some great legit reasons for corporations to buy them.....here are just a few



.1) They can be reused up to a million times: (yes someone actually counted it) this means that their logo will be seen forever! You can’t say that about Bang Sticks.



2) They are VERY USEFUL: They can hold 1000’s of files so they can be transferred to another computer, act as a back-up for safety, put their powerpoints and other presentations on it, put pictures, music files and just about anything else from your computer on it.



3) They are an EXCELLENT business tool: Not only can they do what’s descrived above, they can do a number of other things. PRELOADS, this is when files, presentations and more can be loaded onto the drive by the supplier. This way when the drives are given away/sold the recipient will have a fully loaded presentation. These are perfect for tradeshows, corporate identity building, fund raising, team building and more....MANUALS, BUSINESS REPORTS and more........forget about the expense, time and ecological bad karma when a corporation prints a 100 page report on business. Face facts:......With a business report, the summary gets skimmed over and then....into the circular file it goes. Flash drives help save the ecology.........when their initial use is no longer valid the user just erases the files and uses it to store their Captain and Tenille MP 3’s. Simple.



4) Bigger is Better: DO NOT SELL 64 MB, 128 MB or 256 MB Flash drives.....they are too small. They are not proportionately cheaper by a long shot and the people who recieve them have no use for them. They will chuck them in a drawer. If you want to give your client something they will be happy with and that you can be proud to sell......sell them a 1 GB or higher.....they are a great deal....big enough to hold lots of information and most importantly....people will use them. That’s the basics......there are always lots of new twists and turns with this technology....new uses and new venues for sales....but I hope the above gives you a small bit of knowledge to help you feel more comfortable about selling flash drives.ThanksIf we can be of help in any way...visit us at http://www.flashdrivedirect.com/ or email me at jg@flashdrivedirect.com