The capacities of Flash Thumb Drives is increasing. Back in April 2006 Kanguru Solutions announced a 64GB Flash Drive. At $2,800 it was a bit pricey, as you could get a good notebook computer for that price. The Kanguru Solutions 32GB FlashBlu USB 2.0 Flash Drive is available on Pricegrabber.com, and has dropped considerably from it’s initial price of $1499 to a more reasonable one. Considering that a 160GB portable external hard drive costs less than this, unless you really need a 32GB Flash drive right now, it is worth waiting as the price will most likely drop a lot more.

How much space do you really need in a flash drive though? Right now 4GB and 8GB drives seem to be the best buys for capacity versus price. It all depends on the number and specifically the size of the files you are storing. If they are just a few documents then a 1 or 2 GB USB drive may be enough. Any type of graphics, audio or video files may need far more. Personally I’m trying to limit myself to a relatively fast 4GB USB drive for data files and a number of programs I like to carry around with me.

There are other factors to consider, like security. USB flash drives are relatively small and easy to lose. Again it boils down to the type of data you are storing. If it is some sort of confidential data, then using a drive with built-in security like the Lexar 4GB JumpDrive Secure II Plus USB 2.0 Flash Drive may be advisable.