I have one of these drives and I really love its portability and its flexibility. I would, however, never use it in an archival capacity or consider it a permanent storage medium. They are too new to the market, in my opinion, and seem a little transient to me. That is to say, they will most certainly be replaced by something better or significantly altered as the technology used to create them evolves. They are also untested as to their longterm capabilities. Since I tend to be fairly conservative when it comes to storage, I would stick with the reliable storage methods currently in place. Jos Van Dyck wrote: >What are your thoughts and expectations re. the use of so-called Pen >drives, >solid-state USB2 Flash memory sticks? No more mechanical problems with >drives! >Would these (or other solid-state storage devices) become a viable and >reliable >long-term storage alternative to CD-R, hard disk, tape or other >storage media? >What is their life expectation and vulnerability? > >Cheers, >Jos Van Dyck >NGM > > -- Miriam Meislik Associate Archivist Photograph Curator Archives of Industrial Society 7500 Thomas Blvd. University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (412)244-7075 voice (412)244-7077 fax [log in to unmask] http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/archives/archives.html http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/index.html Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film. --Steven Wright When your mouth drops open, click the shutter --Harold Feinstein, November 11, 2001 Photography does not create eternity. . . it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption. --Andr� Bazin (1918�1958)