I realize that on the On Storage blog, we usually talk about bigger storage options than the USB flash drive. However, they are a bit like the floppy disks of old: ubiquitous, cheap, and relatively easy to use. They are how data travels the modern-day sneakernet.

Sunday, I was walking through the Fry's Electronics in Renton and looked at both the MicroSD cards and the USB flash drives available for sale. I noticed that there were a plethora of 2 and even 4 gig USB drives and they were plentiful. They had a smaller number of 8 gigabyte ones. The 16 gigabyte ones were in much larger cases that were harder to "walk off" with. And just think, a few years ago, the 1 gigabyte drives were in these Fry's lockdown cases.

Here's the other thing: price. They had a certain manufacturers 8 gigabyte flash drive on special for $30 (regularly $50). That's chump change. I know I paid more than that for some of the 1 and 2 gigabyte flash drives I still use today.

Here's the scary thing: even a 1 gigabyte flash drive is more than enough to run a completely portable, bootable linux distribution from, complete with your data. In some cases, you can do it with 128mb flash drives!

It won't be too long before laptops come with solid state drives as standard equipment. The prices are getting cheaper and the densities are getting greater. I predict this will happen within the next three years. What say you?