Archive for Sandisk

What’s In My Tech Sling – The 2024 Edition

Posted in Products with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2024 by itnerd

When I get a phone call from a client from a client to assist them with some sort of tech issue, I need to grab a handful of things that I know that I will usually need on a job and go. For years, I’ve sort of scrambled to find what I need on a moment’s notice. To make my life easier, I have built up a tech sling bag that has my commonly used items that I need when I go to see a client. By doing this, I simply have to do a “grab and go” and I can add it to my backpack if I need to as it doesn’t take up a lot of space. Let’s start with the bag itself:

The is the tomtoc Explorer-H02 EDC Sling Bag in the 8 inch size which has an outer compartment that holds miscellaneous items, a compartment in the back that holds one item that I will get to in a moment, and a middle compartment that holds the majority of my gear. Because it is a sling bag, it goes over my shoulder which is handy if I am just using it by itself. But it will also fit inside my laptop bag or backpack.

Inside the sling bag is this OWC Envoy 1 TB SSD which recently was added to the sling bag. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, but it is quick. That makes it ideal to travel with and use with my clients.

 The Victorinox Cyber Tool on the right the next item in my sling bag I find this to be extremely handy to do everything from open boxes to disassembling computers. Attached to that is Olight i3E EOS flashlight which makes life easier for me when I need light in a dark corner of a computer case or a room as it gets pretty bright.

I usually have a few random USB sticks with utilities on them. Such as malware scanning or unlocking utilities. But I also have a SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO flash drive which occasionally comes in handy with clients. Though with the 1TB OWC drive, I have to admit that I am rethinking whether I need to have that in my tech sling.

I’ve got an Apple AirTag in it so that if I misplace the tech sling, I can find it easily. Because I have left a customer’s site a few times without it, and then had an alert pop up on my iPhone telling me so. It’s inside a Belkin AirTag holder which makes sure that I can attach it to a loop inside the sling bag.

I have a plastic bag with batteries. Specifically some AA, AAA, CR1632, and CR2032 batteries. Because there have been numerous times where a customer had an issue that was solved by a battery, and the customer didn’t have any spare ones. Thus I cover myself for that eventuality.

I also carry a bag with some Woosh Screen shine and a microfibre cloth as I never know when I might need to clean a computer’s screen or keyboard. Be it mine or somebody else’s. This stuff works really well and it’s currently my go to for my computer cleaning needs. I also have some Q-Tips in the bag to get to those hard to reach places.

I have a small bag with a bunch of USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A adapters as they come in handy for customers who need to plug something into a computer and don’t have the right adapter.

Another recent addition to my tech sling is this Anker Ethernet to USB-C adapter that runs at 2.5 Gbps. Ideally, I would want to have a 10 Gbps adapter in my sling, but those are still pretty pricy. Thus this will work for me until prices drop.

To cover off any charging needs that I or others might have, I have a UGREEN Nexode 100W charger that has three USB-C ports and a single USB-A port. I can charge anything from phones to my MacBook Pro to my iPhone. Most of the time, I’ve used it to charge my client’s stuff quickly.

I have a variety of cables in my tech sling, starting with this Anker 100W USB-C power delivery cable for charging purposes only.

I also have an HDMI cable that comes in handy when I have a MacBook Pro and I need to plug into a projector or TV at a client’s site.

I also have a flat Ethernet cable which comes in handy when I need to plug into something using the Anker Ethernet adapter that I spoke of earlier.

The key cable that I carry is a RollingSquare InCharge XL which is my one cable to rule them all. I say that because it will cover any use case that I may need when at a client’s location as it is good for data transfer and for charging.

I also have that cable’s little brother the RollingSquare InCharge X as it it sometimes is handy to have a second cable that doesn’t take up a lot of real estate. It’s beaten up as it once was on my keychain. But it works just fine.

The second last item is this GearAid HeroClip. What this is for is to allow me to hook, hang, and carry my gear. I have it because if I have to use a public restroom, there is often no place to hang a jacket, or the sling bag, or a laptop bag. Thus making this piece of kit extremely handy. I got the large size to make sure that I could hang anything that I needed as it has a 100 pound weight limit.

The last item is this pen. Because everyone needs a pen.

So that’s what is inside my tech sling bag. This works for me, but I would be interested in hearing from you in terms of what you think I should add to it or change. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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Review: SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB USB 3.2 Solid State Flash Drive

Posted in Products with tags on February 9, 2021 by itnerd

For years I’ve been walking around with a 32GB USB thumb drive on my keychain. But lately I’ve found that 32GB isn’t enough for me when I do work for clients. For example when I have to move files from one computer to another. So that made me look for a replacement, and I chose the SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB USB 3.2 Solid State Flash Drive.

For the record, this drive comes in sizes of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and a mind blowing 1TB. All of which fit on your keychain. It really feels like a well constructed premium product that will survive something longer than 10 seconds in your pocket. It’s cool to the touch as well which adds to the premium feel. You can thank the aluminum metal casing for that. The USB-A connector slides out using a slide mechanism on the top of the drive that has a very satisfying click when you use it. It also means when it is recessed, it is less likely to get damaged.

Now the company on their website which I linked to above makes some very conservative claims about how fast this drive is. The packaging however, makes some really bold claims:

Super fast SSD performance? Speeds of 420 MB/s read and 380 MB/s write? Hmmmm….. I think a marketing person drank one to many glasses of wine coming up with this copy. Because those numbers don’t equal “Super fast SSD performance”. But let’s prove that. First let’s test a 32GB USB stick from a name brand company using CrystalDiskMark 8.0.1 as a starting point to see what sort of performance we get:

Now this is the performance that you typically get from a USB thumb drive. Pretty middling sequential read and write numbers. And pretty abysmal random read and write numbers. The reason being is that most USB thumb drives are built to a price point (as in as cheap as possible) and are not built to perform at top speed.

Let’s contrast that with the SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB USB 3.2 Solid State Flash Drive. I used the same PC and the same USB port to do this test:

In short, the Sandisk drive destroyed the 32GB drive. And it’s pretty clear that the speeds of 420 MB/s read and 380 MB/s write that Sandisk quotes came from the sequential read speeds. Because any drive will perform well doing sequential reads and writes. But the random reads and writes were pretty impressive and consistent. So in short, this is the quickest USB thumb drive that I’ve come across. But there’s that one claim of “Super-fast SSD performance” that was on the packaging. While I will admit that the performance that this drive is capable of has the look of an SSD because of how balanced the performance is when it comes to random and sequential scenarios, it’s nowhere near as fast. To illustrate this, I will use the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD which is currently in the “God tier” of SSD drives, and is in the same PC that I used to conduct the first two tests to illustrate this:

I’m guessing that the Samsung drive didn’t break a sweat humbling the Sandisk drive. So, why am I pointing this out? Well, if you put a claim on the package, you better be able back it up. They couldn’t and here we are talking about it. And what’s funny is that there is no fine print or disclaimers of any sort regarding this claim on the packaging. In short, someone in their marketing department needs a talking to because it seems like someone made some stuff up in hopes of selling a few extra copies of this drive to people who wouldn’t know any better.

Now if you ignore the marketing fail, this is an insanely quick USB thumb drive. There are some extras like software that will do software based encryption on the drive, and data recovery software. But in my opinion, if you need a drive that does encryption, there are secure hardware based encryption thumb drives that you should look at. And when it comes to data recovery, you should pay an expert to do that for you if you get in that situation. Though if you accidentally delete a file, I suppose it can’t hurt to run this software to see if you can get it back first.

Here’s the bottom line. If you need large amounts of storage and it has to be quick by thumb drive standards, this is the thumb drive to get. My 128GB drive cost me $49.99 CDN on Amazon. 256GB is $80 CDN and 512GB is $165 CDN. I couldn’t find a price for the 1TB version. Check it out if you fit the use case for this drive. Just don’t believe everything on the packaging.

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Review: SanDisk Ultra Flair 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Posted in Products with tags on September 29, 2017 by itnerd

I walk around with a flash drive on my keychain at all times. The reason being that if I need to back up something in an emergency, or build a bootable USB flash drive in an emergency, I have the means to do it. To ensure that I had space for both possibilities, I decided to get a physically small flash drive with a lot of space. As in 32GB of space. So one trip to Amazon and I ordered the SanDisk Ultra Flair 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive which happened to be on special:

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As you can see, the drive is tiny. You hardly know it’s there as it doesn’t take up a lot of real estate. But it is quick. Since it’s a USB 3.0 drive, it’s capable of 150MB/s, Now I can’t confirm that I am getting those speeds, but it is insanely quick. Anything that I’ve done with it since I got it takes way less time than any other USB drive I have used lately.

Because this lives in my pocket, I have to be sure that any USB key will survive that environment as a lot of them won’t. The SanDisk Ultra Flair drive has been in my pocket for just over a week and there isn’t even a scratch on it. And it still works perfectly. It also has the ability to be password protected using SanDisk SecureAccess 3.0 which works with Windows and Mac. I’m not leveraging that feature as I have nothing critical on that drive. But it is an option for those who do.

The 32GB drive retails for $50 USD and comes with a 5 year warranty. But I got it from Amazon for $18 CDN which means it pays to shop around. It’s also available in capacities all the way up to 128GB. Consider it if you need a durable flash drive that doesn’t take up a whole lot of real estate.

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