Cheapest USB Key Drives/Memory Sticks: 4GB under £9

What's the deal?

USB flash memory drives have now all but replaced the humble floppy disk as a means of carting data around town, due to their winning combination of vastly increased capacity and compact (keyring) size. TFor non-technies this is the memory key you stick into your PC.

Now you can get a huge 4GB version for £9, and those that don't need that much space can take advantage of some other great deals:

The cheapest:

All the drives below are USB 2.0, meaning faster transfers if your computer supports the standard, and will work on both PC and Mac. I've started at 2GB, as postage charges make buying single 1GB or smaller drives over the net uneconomical.

2GB: Stores approx 1200 5 megapixel photos or 500 mp3s.

• MyMemory or Play.com own brand 2GB flash drive. £6.99 delivered
  
  Specialist flash memory retailer MyMemory offers its compact own brand cards for £6.99 with free postage.
  
  Play also offers an own brand card at this price. It's a matter of taste which is better (though the specs say that MyMemory's offering's slightly quicker).

4GB: Stores approx 2400 5 megapixel photos or 1000 mp3s.

• Play.com 4GB USB flash drive £8.99 delivered.
  
  Due to its free postage, Play's the cheapest place to get a 4GB own brand version. Feedback's good on it too.

8GB: Stores approx 4800 5 megapixel photos or 2000 mp3s.

• Play.com 8GB USB flash drive £15.99 delivered.
  
  Again Play comes top due to its postage policy. In everything except its capacity, this drive is identical to the Play ones above.

• PNY Attache 8GB USB flash drive £17.99 delivered.
  
  Also available from Play, this PNY branded drive boasts quicker read/write speeds, and has a capless design for those like me who are prone to losing lids. Thanks to bazzlad for posting this below.

• Freecom 8GB Databar £18.79 delivered.
  
  If you're willing to spend another 80p, you can also get a Freecom branded USB drive from Amazon. It's well-built, and carries good feedback across the board.

Need more speed?

Whilst cheap and sufficient for most people, the drives above are unlikely to win any records for read/write speeds. If you need storage which'll read/write at eye-watering rates, then you'll pay more. Sandisk's 'Extreme' range is a good place to start looking.

Carrying sensitive data?

If your USB key holds sensitive personal information then make sure you password protect it so it doesn't get into the wrong hands. And don't let the Inland Revenue look after it...

Looking on eBay? Be very careful.

Whilst it's possible to find top deals on legit flash memory products on eBay, the constant need to undercut the next cheapest has seen many unscrupulous sellers resort to selling counterfeit branded flash drives.

Worse still, some will sell a 2GB drive as 4GB, and the drive itself will even tell you it has 4GB on it. You'll only realise it doesn't when you reach the 2GB mark and get a message saying there's no space left.

Trouble storing single files larger than 4GB?

You may find you get an error message when trying to load a file larger than 4GB onto a larger flash drive. This is because drives are usually formatted in the FAT32 standard, and 4GB is the largest single file size supported by that standard.

To get it to work, you must reformat it to NTFS by (windows users) right clicking its icon in 'My Computer', choosing format, and selecting NTFS from the drop down under 'File system'. Mac OSX users can achieve the same thing using Disk Utility in the applications folder.

Obviously by reformatting you'll wipe the drive clean, and Xbox 360 users should note that this'll render it invisible to the console (which only supports FAT32).

-Lawrence

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