My Fascination With Keychain Storage

Wow, 512 MB on a device the size of a keychain. Anyone remember the 5 ?? inch 512-K floppies? Star Trek doesn't sound too far off these days.

February 18, 2004

1 Min Read
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Approximately two years ago, I got my hands on some keychain storage devices. They were just out on the market, and I wrote an article for our sister publication, VARBusiness.

Well its two years later, and what was big time storage capacity back then (1 MB to 32 MB), is now paltry. Today, 512 MB to 1 GB are available on a device that's not much bigger than one of those car keys.

Wow, 512 MB on a little device. Anyone remember the 5 ¼ inch 512-K floppies? Star Trek doesn't sound too far off these days.

So I asked myself, "Is anyone really using these things?" I looked around and saw that some of my contemporaries are using them, but the keychain device I found in my pile of stuff, only held 32 MB. Given the size of my Excel files these days, I'd have some difficulty putting a year's worth a data on one that size.

Now, I liked the idea back then, and like it now. Put all my important data on a little drive, and when I go hither and yarn, I can have all my important data, right at my fingertips. But then again, maybe it isn't worth it? I never really got any use our of my 32-MB version.So, off I went to the same vendor who made my 32-MB keychain, M-Systems. I wanted to take a new 512-MB or 1G-B keychain for the ride of its (my?) life!

In the meantime, while I await a copy, how many of you indulge?

For other storage news, be sure to check out Storage Pipeline.

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