Fingernail-Sized USB Drive Packs Whopping 32 GB

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Lexar Media revealed two backup drives, one smaller than a fingernail.

Lexar Media today launched two "Echo" flashed-based backup drives that may be hard to grasp in a visual sense. The Echo ZE drive is slated to be one of the smallest USB drives in the world, measuring just 20.1 x 15.1 millimeters. It's also probably obvious that this model doesn't provide a massive load of storage space... that's coughed up by its larger cousin, the Echo SE series.

Outside the ZE's particular size, the biggest feature both drives offer is their ability to keep the PC backed up at all times thanks to software provided on the drives. The larger SE version isn't really suitable to stay plugged into a laptop (or a desktop for that matter), however the miniature Smurf-like ZE drive is designed to be "plug-and-stay," meaning it won't stick out like a mutated appendage.

Lexar Media claims that the larger SE drive offers read speeds up to 28 MB/s and write speeds up to 10 MB/s. The company didn't really provide read and write numbers in regards to the ZE drive, but did mention that both will securely encrypt user files. Both are also compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OS X operating systems.

Although no price points were offered, the SE comes in three capacities: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB. As for the tiny ZE drive, it comes in 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB capacities. Lexar Media said that the drives will begin to hit the market next month.

Kevin Parrish
24 Comments Comment from the forums
  • fatkid35
    didn't they do this with cell phones. smaller, smaller , smaller.... so what. just easier to loose.
    Reply
  • webbwbb
    Well if they can fit 32gb into that space then imagine how much storage a full sized drive could have in about a year. We could be hitting the 1TB mark with flash drives before we know it.
    Reply
  • hakkafusion
    plug and stay. ain't going no where =)
    Reply
  • Want a 1TB drive with 28MB/s read and 10MB/s write? Try copying over a disk image on that thing.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    The SE is a bore. Nothing makes it better over it's competitors that can be both faster and with larger capacities. Plus there's alot of avaliable software to do automatic encrypted backups.

    The only thing that makes the ZE special is it's size, which is increadible at 32GB. I'd love to see the technology under it's hood.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    fatkid35didn't they do this with cell phones. smaller, smaller , smaller.... so what. just easier to loose.In this case, it's totally different. Sure it's easier to use, but I've lost dozens of standard sized flash drives as well. And I've broken dozens in my laptop too, because of their size. (Imagine a usb drive sticking out the side while you're facebooking from bed, and you suddenly get up to use the bathroom when you realize that the body portion of your 64GB usb drive just landed at your feet.)

    Drives like this prevent that problem completely, which is plenty welcome in my book. Specially since my BT connected phone does the same job wirelessly that thumb drives did for me 5 years ago.
    Reply
  • Gandalf
    This size will only be helpful when incorporated with something else. It's the technology that makes it smaller that's important.
    Reply
  • christop
    sweet but no pics?
    Reply
  • christop
    K see it now..
    Reply
  • omnimodis78
    fatkid35didn't they do this with cell phones. smaller, smaller , smaller.... so what. just easier to loose.If you're the type who loses things, then the size isn't the problem, you are the problem! This is great especially for car stereos which are USB compatible! This is much nicer than having a 2" thing sticking out.
    Reply