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SanDisk 4 GB Cruzer Micro with U3 ( SDCZ6-4096-A11, Retail Package) | 
 enlarge | Brand: SanDisk
Category: CE
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $7.55
You Save: $32.44 (81%)
New (23) from $7.55
Avg. Customer Rating:  161 reviews
Format: Cd
Platforms: Macintosh, Windows
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows & Macintosh
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 2 x 0.8 x 0.3
MPN: SDCZ6-4096-A11
Model: SDCZ6-4096-A11
UPC: 619659025397
EAN: 0619659025397
Release Date: March 16, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | 4 GB Capacity | | • | 2 year Warranty | | • | High speed USB 2.0 Certified | | • | U3 Smart enabled | | • | Brilliant Amber LED |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Cruzer Micro is an incredibly small USB Flash Drive (UFD) that connects to a computer's USB port. Users can easily store their key documents, pictures, music and video clips on a Cruzer Micro and transfer them to another computer with a USB port.Cruzer Micro is small, portable, and smart. Small, compact size fits on any keychain. New retractable USB port eliminates the need for caps and protects your port. Cruzer Micro is a computer in your pocket.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 156 more reviews...
 Great thumb drive, U3 software not as good as expected. September 4, 2006
150 out of 152 found this review helpful
The thumb drive performs well and is up to Sandisk quality. Having 4GB capacity is great, I had outgrown my 1GB Lexar device. I currently use 3.5GB to carry around software as a computer professional as well as some personal files. The drive is slim allowing insertion in 'tight spots' at the rear of computers.
The feature that attracted me to this unit is the U3 software and the bundled apps such as Avast anti-virus and Skype. Being able to run your favorite apps on any computer using your preferences is wonderful. The drive can be optionally protected via a password which is important to me since I keep scans of important documents on it 'just in case' they go astray.
The U3 software isn't as good as expected however, here are my findings about the U3 software.
It is slow to run on older computers. I have come across one computer it crashes on everytime I insert the drive (Medion brand computer). Since my files are password protected I can't get to them on that computer. To be fair I have run the software on dozens of other computers without a hitch.
The password protection works well, however I preferred the Lexar secure drives, they partition the drive into 2 areas, a protected and unprotected area. Making the entire drive secure prevents me 'passing on' my drive for someone to load a file on their system unless I type my password in, which of course gives them access to all my sensitive files as well.
Running software apps as part of the U3 platform works quite well, both Sandisk and U3 provide a wide range of software to choose from, much of which is free. I have Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp, Avast, Open Office, an FTP client and much more available to me while I use another computer. I find the apps run too slowly to be my primary software platform as I hoped it would become, this is true even on USB 2.0 systems, on 1.1 systems it's hopelessly slow. Consequently I use the application software more as a troubleshooting tool or option of last resort. Both U3 and Sandisk 'certify' the apps they provide as true U3 applications which means when you run the software from the thumb drive it will not impact the host computer at all after it is unplugged. The downside to this certification is that the latest versions of apps are not immediatly available until they go through the certifcation process.
Someone else here complains that the U3 software cannot be removed. It can, there is a special removal tool available from U3 website. Warning - once removed it can never be reloaded on the device, they do not and will not provide a downloadable version of U3. I have updated the U3 software and apps from the Sandisk website without any hitches.
I would unload the U3 software if I didn't also lose the password security. If you do not need security and want a better option to run your apps, I suggest 'Portable Apps' (do a google search on portableapps) as an alternative to the U3 software. Using the PStart utility to replace the U3 launchpad you can make it run as well as the U3 software and gain the ability to run the very latest apps of your choice without waiting for U3 or Sandisk to certify it. You can also copy the entire contents to another drive or backup the drive to a personal computer. System transfer or total backup can't be done with the U3 platform. I run the portable apps software on my Sandisk U3 drive with great results, I rarely use the U3 certified apps anymore and have unloaded most of them.
 Don't be like Mike... it works fine May 26, 2006
87 out of 110 found this review helpful
I feel I have to write a quick review to balance that posted by an obviously upset patron ("Mike") who posted a review even though he didn't buy this particular model (he purchased the 512mb). Look, the bottom line is this thing works as advertised (it does say "WITH U3") and it works just fine. No problems to report after a month of us on my part. 4 gbs is a lot of photos and video to haul around and you can. And it is a Sandisk, best selling maker of flash memory products (haven't had one fail yet regardless of the type... CF, SD, the Cruzers, etc.). So, in the end... Don't be like Mike. Know what you're buying first and if you get this one, know that it'll work just fine.
Great Travel Companion September 6, 2006
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
I travel 3-5 days per week in my job and end up using many different computers. That's why I love U3. I use Firefox to keep all of my bookmarks and plug-ins available on any computer. I use Thunderbird to manage my personal e-mail. I use Zinio Reader to store and read the several digital magazines to which I subscribe to avoid paper. I can do all of this from any computer with USB anywhere I go without having any effect on that computer. This is great given my company's incredibly rigid IT policy (absolutely no personal software on company machines, including laptops).
U3 can be a bit slow, but not frustratingly so. You can set your computer to not run U3 on connecting.
The drive has great capacity in a small and durable package. I recommend it to any traveler.
 Word of warning on these products... March 12, 2007
18 out of 23 found this review helpful
SanDisk makes great products, but these travel type drives have become an annoyance and a nuisance since they've gotten into bed with U3.
The company makes claim like easy access to files and available software's, but what they don't tell you up front is that U3 technology requires a section of your jump-drive, usually only a couple MBs, to be taken up by hardcoded software (which you cannot remove) and an auto-executable to run the U3 software (which can be removed), here's the kicker though, as soon as you remove the .exe from the drive your drive suddenly looses anywhere from 4mb to a whopping 50mb of storage space.
Also, these drives may be cheap, probably due to the fact that the anti-U3 movement has gotten a huge following since the Technology surfaces a year or so ago, but another thing that needs to be remembered is that if your working on a secured computer, e.g. preset drives, like you run into in businesses and at public access computers like College Labs, often you can't connect them because the computer isn't configured for them. These Cruzer's require 2 drive letters, 1 for the U3 drive and 1 for the data drive, if the computer wont allow the extra drive to be assigned this device will cause problems with your computer, if your lucky the U3 tries loading and it sticks, you can still save your stuff though to the Hard Drive and reboot, if your unlucky it'll crash the system and you'll loose any unsaved items.
Software removal, as stated above it's not really software removal, its just removes the .exe from the drive so the software wont run. Note though, U3 originally didn't have this option, this came along after several things occurred, their claim that the data drives themselves were usable on all computers turned out to be untrue (Macs don't like these at all and Linux can flake out because of it, then the security issues) and the companies that used them lost sales because of it. As for users complaining that they lost their data, not to be heartless about it, I feel your loss, but there are two things for you think about, next time don't buy an item based on price but by looking at reviews, all U3 items have good and bad reviews, and if you would have dug through them you could have determined if anything containing U3 was right for you, and its your fault you lost your data when you removed the exe, for all its faults U3 did design its software removal program right, and it does warn you to back up the contents of the drive before running it, because they have to format the exe off and make a marker so that the auto-reinstall doesn't put it back.
As for software, it is a long list they have available for themselves, but the software has to be designed for it, having never used a U3 drive for this purpose I don't know if its slow or not, but I suspect it is. Why? Because computers use program supporters like dll's to run the software, these files usually have to be located in very specific directories or the computer wont find them, the programs they have for this technology have either been made to use default versions of these files, relocated versions of these files (probably on the drive, you can do this yourself using a portable hard drive, but it can be kind of difficult to set up and get working) or don't even use them at all, which usually sacrifices performance over connivance.
To sum it all up nice and simple, I'm not telling you not to buy the products, these drives are just as usable as any other, I'm just telling you to consider what you want from the drive, if its for just carrying your files around get something else, if you want the option of having software on your jump-drive without the hassle of configuring it yourself this might be for you, though its limited right now, a list of software's are available at [...].
It works fine with a Mac August 7, 2006
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
To clear up some confusion, the DRIVE works fine on a Mac, the SOFTWARE doesn't work at all. When I inserted this drive into my Mac (OS X.4.7) my computer said it was a blank CD and I needed to select which program I wanted to use with it. I selected Disk Utility so I could erase the drive and selected Mac OS (Journaled). Once I did that (and provided a name), it works just fine. It's very fast for transfers and I'm a happy camper.
If you want to keep this drive available to transfer data back and forth between Macs and PCs, do what I just suggested, but select MS-DOS File System for the formatting. This will ease the U3 software on the drive, but who cares. Note: if you do format the drive for this format (and not Mac formatting) file transfer on the Mac will suffer a performance hit. That's just the way it is. When you run a PC formatted disk on a Mac, you have to have some emulation going on and that eats up cycles. However, if you place a Mac formatted disk into a PC, it will not know what to do at all other than to offer to erase the drive. So, if you want/need to play with PCs you will have to accept the performance hit. If you never go near PCs, just format for Mac and be a happy camper too.
Since the U3 software is irrelevant to me, my review is not based on the significance that I removed it entirely from the drive.
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