Sony Memory Stick - what memory to use?

[Pete L]

I have a Sony Vaio laptop. It has a memory stick slot with the adaptor
but no memory. I'm not clear what memory card to get for it. The Sony
card itself seems to be about twice as expensive as any other generic
type. I only intend to use the memory stick just as an extra bit of
room so as not use up space on the hard drive. I was thinking of
putting a large application, say Office, on a 2Gb card. Does this
sound feasible/sensible and would it work as happily as it would if I
put it on the main hard drive?

 

[PeeCee]

I have a Sony Vaio laptop. It has a memory stick slot with the adaptor
but no memory. I'm not clear what memory card to get for it. The Sony
card itself seems to be about twice as expensive as any other generic
type. I only intend to use the memory stick just as an extra bit of
room so as not use up space on the hard drive. I was thinking of
putting a large application, say Office, on a 2Gb card. Does this
sound feasible/sensible and would it work as happily as it would if I
put it on the main hard drive?

Pete

The Memory Stick slot is usually used for Memory Sticks from things like
Digital Cameras & PDA's.
Check the specification as the slot may be able to accept SD as well, in
this case you can save money by buying SD which are usually cheaper per MB.

A better option would be to purchase a USB memory stick (sometimes called a
'Flash drive')
There is a huge range of these available at sizes up to 4GB and more with
price points and quality to match every need.

More to the point they have become the universal removable media of choice
and are far more useful for the purpose you want than Memory Stick (and a
lot cheaper per MB/GB)

Best
Paul.

 

[Pete L]

Pete

The Memory Stick slot is usually used for Memory Sticks from things like
Digital Cameras & PDA's.
Check the specification as the slot may be able to accept SD as well, in
this case you can save money by buying SD which are usually cheaper per MB.

A better option would be to purchase a USB memory stick (sometimes called a
'Flash drive')
There is a huge range of these available at sizes up to 4GB and more with
price points and quality to match every need.

More to the point they have become the universal removable media of choice
and are far more useful for the purpose you want than Memory Stick (and a
lot cheaper per MB/GB)

Best
Paul.

Thanks Paul - I do already have a USB memory stick and it's very
useful. All I was thinking of was just putting in a card into the
memory stick and just using it as an additional drive. I don't use
Office very often but I thought I could just have it sitting there on
the memory stick and it's available whenever I need it without using
up space on my main drive. I'll try a SD and see what happens!

 

[kony]

I have a Sony Vaio laptop. It has a memory stick slot with the adaptor
but no memory. I'm not clear what memory card to get for it. The Sony
card itself seems to be about twice as expensive as any other generic
type.

Yes, that's what happens when a proprietary technology is
used. It tends to make it a poor value to use a memory
stick unless forced to (already owned a camera that needed
it, for example).

I only intend to use the memory stick just as an extra bit of
room so as not use up space on the hard drive.

I have to wonder why. If your hard drive has insufficient
space on it, you might find it best to replace/upgrade the
hard drive. Depending on the age of the laptop and specs of
the original drive, this might also be a significant
performance upgrade, a laptop hard drive is often one of the
larger bottlenecks to common uses.

Flash memory is relatively expensive per capacity too, but
having a 2nd (drive) volume like this does gain one thing,
by putting your data on it instead of filling with only
static application files, you have a greater chance of
retaining data should the more-failure-prone hard drive were
to crash. Plus, being so easily removable it is easier to
move data back and forth to another system. While the same
could be said about a USB thumbdrive, it is a bit less
protected mechanically since it sticks out the side of a USB
socket - something placing it at more of a risk on a laptop
which could potentially be moved around while the flash
drive was plugged in, contrasted with a (stationary)
desktop.

I was thinking of
putting a large application, say Office, on a 2Gb card. Does this
sound feasible/sensible and would it work as happily as it would if I
put it on the main hard drive?

I would say it's most sensible if you have a special need
but you haven't mentioned any need that makes it a good
value or better than putting Office on the hard drive. I
would upgrade the hard drive first if lack of space is an
issue. If you had a need for smaller data sets you could
still compliment that hard drive with a smaller flash drive
of either type at a lower cost, or perhaps it isn't needed
at all if you have desktop at home and network them, it
becomes practically hassle-free to move data around.

I'm not suggesting it's necessarily a bad idea to use a
memory stick, but to store Office I don't see a good
price:benefit ratio and if your file stores are growing to
the point of running out of hard drive space, buying a small
flash drive may only be a short term solution, you may still
run out of space and then have to keep buying evermore flash
cards or still upgrade the hard drive.