Is PNY a good flash drive brand, or is it problem-prone?

I have two flash drives, a little Lexar and a big PNY. My XP system has several times failed to recognize the PNY. That's never happened with the Lexar. A computer-savvy relative told me he hears PNY is problem-prone.

What do you think?


Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit SP3
CPU
Intel Pentium 4
Northwood 0.13um Technology
RAM
2.00GB DDR @ 166MHz (2.5-3-3-7)
Motherboard
Dell Computer Corp. 0G1548 (Microprocessor)
Graphics
Default Monitor (1280x1024@60Hz)
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (Dell)
Storage
74GB Seagate ST380011A (ATA)
3GB Lexar USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
119GB PNY USB 2.0 FD USB Device (USB)

 

I've not, personally, heard of problems with PNY flash drives — just SanDisk. Are you using "Safely Remove Hardware" before you pull the flash drive so the computer can reset itself? Or do you have the PNY configured for quick removal?

 

I don't use PNY much; however I haven't had any issues when I do.

If you're looking for one with a lower price, Patriot makes pretty good ones.

 

Flash memory is flash memory. It is usually mass produced in a factory and then companies slap their name on it.

In summary, PNY is fine.

 

I have a PNY and a Cruiser no issues with either except the writing has worn off the Cruiser it being the elder of the two. The PNY gets passed around like a red headed step child sharing movies, the Cruiser is my work flash it has been in more computers than I count has all my fixes etc on it.

 

Personally I prefer Corsair Flash Voyager GTs as I find them very fast and almost indestructable and worth the extra money my boss has to pay LOL
If I am paying I get San Disk, Patriot, Transcend or AData whichever is on special because I am a cheap a$$. I generally buy either 16Gb or 32Gb as they seem the best value for my needs although I still have about half a dozen old 8Gb Flash Voyagers that are about 10 years old and now they are just used in the workshop as boot drives.
My kids use any brand that is cheap and tacky like skull shaped ones or animal shaped ones and they don't seem to have any trouble other than losing them all the time rolleyes

Adry is technically right all things being equal. The main differences between the cheap ones and the expensive ones are the USB connector quality, whether the chips are A, B or C grade chips, the quality of the device case, the length of warranty offered and the display packaging and advertising costs. All these variables affect the final device price For example some brands spend more on display packaging, "free" giveaways and advertising than the actual device costs rolleyes

 

Only problem I've ever run into is compatibility with using a USB stick for recovery media. It could be XP has some trouble with such a large USB storage device.

It can't format sizes larger than 32GB if you want to use FAT32 you need a third party program to do the job. Use NTFS. MS put out an article on this very subject:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q314463&

There are also some follow up articles about conversion.

 

Honestly, I'd recommend exFat over NTFS for flash drives. There is more mainstream support for it than NTFS.

For example, NTFS can only be read in OS X without a third party driver, but exFat can be read and written to. That, and NTFS can be a hassle because of filesystem level permissions, which would be bad on a flash device.

 

We have several PNY Flash Drives. My wife and daughter are heavy user's and no problems yet. I also have a few ScanDisk that are fine.

Adrynalyne is Right flash memory is flash memory.

joffa, I have "free" DANE-ELEC its old and I abuse it all the time.:-D

Just remember to Safely Eject Hardware.

 

I've heard exFAT can be more trouble than it's worth, but I will bow to thou who is geekier than myself.

:-D

 

Hey james I have a couple of the first of the 1Gb cheap no name brand USB memory sticks that were a freebie when I bought a laptop many many moons ago and I still use one of them in the car to store mp3 music and the other is somewhere in the junk box :-D

Some of the high quality items my kids buy rolleyes

One of my son's thumb drives LOL
http://techgeek.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/image03510353235.jpg

or the skull

http://www.isn24.com/images/flash_disk/t10-01.JPG

or my daughter's ice cream

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31Zjnox2JJL._SY300_.jpg

You can be sure these are the best quality ever roflmao

 

@conceptualclarity,

You're running XP. XP doesn't natively support exFat. You'd need to download and install KB955704 to gain support for exFat in Windows XP. I run it on my XP drive and formatting to exFat is then available.

 

thanks. Have done that.

 

For a while it was working pretty good. Now it's failing to recognize my PNY flash drive F at initial bootup on an almost daily basis.