Last Friday I partook in the Black Friday sales frenzy and purchased a 4GB SanDisk Micro Cruzer USB flash drive for $60. It seemed like a great deal compared to the retail price of $99. This drive was U3 Enabled, a term I had heard a few times before but that I was overall clueless about. U3 is an LLC backed by SanDisk and M-Systems that created a specification for USB flash drives to run Microsoft Windows programs directly off the drive. Specially formatted drives that meet this criteria are labeled as U3 smart drives and come with pre-installed software for Windows computers.
Similar to the fine offerings of Portable Apps, U3 smart drives come with a similar launchpad to control the pre-installed applications. The applications that come on the drive vary by make and model but mine came with a SanDisk application CruzerSync for email and backups, a password management program I’ve never heard of as well as Skype of all things. The first time you connect a U3 smart flash drive to your Windows PC, it will autorun some stuff and place a dandy (sarcasm) icon in your taskbar tray. For a second, I had flashbacks of the AOL days.
Whenever you plug the same U3 smart flash drive into your Mac you are presented with two items on your desktop – the actual usable read/write partition and an annoying 60MB read-only partition that stores the pre-installed Windows software.
For Windows users, U3 might serve some purpose including the ability to download additional U3 smart software such as Trillian, OpenOffice and Firefox that reside on the protected U3 System partition. My problem with U3 is that the average user that won’t use the pre-installed software loses valuable storage space.
U3 is actually a pain to uninstall. I loaded the drive in OS X’s disk utility and reformatted it but the partition that mimics a CD-ROM drive remained. It was only after Best Buy’s Geek Squad complained about the difficulty of removing U3 functionality that U3 began bundling an uninstall application this month. The uninstall application is of course Windows only, so I had to briefly borrow my roommate’s PC.
How do you feel about U3 and other software that comes pre-installed on flash USB sticks? I buy USB sticks for their versatility, utility and storage space, not their pre-installed software that takes up space. The fact that the U3 software autoruns everytime you plug it in is also a bit disconcerting. Similar to Jakob Nielsen’s qualm about websites that open new browser windows (#9), software that runs on its own scares the casual PC user and invokes a frantic thought of “what’s going on?”
I do realize that U3 is an attempt by SanDisk to add features to the otherwise bland USB flash drive product, but unreliable software (many reports of U3 software freezing systems) that doesn’t work on most operating systems is not the way to go.
I can’t think of a time that I actually used software that came bundled with a PC. When Intel gave me a laptop for their blog challenge, I spent 3 hours uninstalling the useless bundled and pre-installed software. If I had my way, I would have just reinstalled XP but it didn’t come with any such discs.
Other than that, I love this flash drive – great form factor and speed.
Left to Right: AA battery, SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Micro, SanDisk 2GB Cruzer Micro, Lexar 1GB JumpDrive (very old), SanDisk 512MB Cruzer Micro
PaulStamatiou.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like PaulStamatiou.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.
Stumble This
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I bought an ATIVA drive with U3 and don’t have access to a PC so needless to say I am continually annoyed when I pop this thing in. Is there no way to remove the software? I’ve tried every possible thing you could do with disk utility but I was hoping there was some other piece of freeware that might do the trick.
@cwd – If your drive didn’t come with an uninstaller you can use this one: http://www.u3.com/uninstall/
I have the 1GB version of the drive. I picked it up at Staples a few weeks ago for $15. Great deal. Anyway, I too removed the U3 software. Not only was I not going to use it, it became a pain having to eject two drives before removing the flash disk. Besides, the apps you can install on U3 mostly have non-U3 versions for any flash disk.
Very true indeed. It seems like the only difference between U3 and Portable Apps is that U3 apps are on their own little partition.
Man, i got the exact same USB drive for an insane deal in Canada (at Compusmart, albeit, 2 weeks before Black Friday). It was regular $230, but I got it for $99 with instant rebates.
As for the U3 stuff, I find it incredibly useful on my daily commute to school, where I have to use Windows computers. Firefox loads in a flash, and so do many, many more apps (including Yahoo! Widgets).
I didn’t regret this purchase. Besides, it’s MUCH larger than my old one (256MB)
I bought the 1GB version of the Cruzer a few months ago and absolutely love the little guy after I managed to manually find the uninstall software. It’s probably the best thumbdrive I’ve ever had. On Black Friday I scored a couple 1GB PNY thumbdrives for $15/ea and they feel so much cheaper than the Cruzer, but didn’t come bundled with crapware, which is a plus.
I owned the 2gb version earlier this year and haven’t had time to uninstall the U3 system on it. It’s more of a hindrence really… both on mac and PC. I can’t wait to do it, but I’ll need to sort out my files first. Nice that the company finally made their own uninstaller.
If you install the latest U3 software, on windows anyway, there is an option to disable the autorun of the software. This way you can get the best of both worlds.
What a coincidence! I bought the very same thumb-drive 2 weeks ago.
I like the idea about U3-software, but it only works on my Dell D600 laptop from work and on my home PC only when using a very restrictive user-account… Indeed the U3-software is far from stable and mature. And useless on my iBook G4 of course.
Also check out http://www.portableapps.com if you like taking some more extra and free software with you.
i have the same drive, that i use at work, away from the powerbook.
it also has u3 installed but i seldom use it. i have pstart as app launcher and all sorts of software installed (portable flock, firefox, openoffice, gimp,…), all of it from portableapps.
i find it very practical and i believe their software is updated more often and they seem to have the latest versions of the software they have available, keeping up with the updates very quickly. u3 doesn’t.
Thanks Paul!
I hate U3. I use some apps that run from USB for when I’m at Uni, but that’s only because they don’t have Opera… U3 came with my USB as well, and it was very annoying and then everytime you plug it in somewhere it wants to install something. God awful. If they made it without an installer, then I would consider it.
U3 is the closest I’ve ever gotten to falling victim to a virus. I bought 1G cruzers for my kids, and their agony due to frequent XP crashes finally ended when I finally figured out what was going on and ran the uninstaller.
Great drive, recklessly irresponsible implementation of 3rd rate code.
The Ativa I bought, to move my JPEG’s to a RiteAid Drug Store Digital photo vending kiosk doesn’t work because of the auto start.
-
I tried to format the little bugger, but every time I put the flash drive in a USB slot the files are reloaded from my hard drive.
Anyone know how to uninstall U3 or at least track down the files to delete.
thanks,
d
I bought the 4GIG SanDisk for $39 at circuit city. I guess all of the negative press drove the price down. The uninstall did not even work for me. I think it has something to do with Roxio CD burner software.
It would not autorun when I booted up, so I made a sortcut to the LaunchU3 on the PSEUDO CD DRIVE and sent it to my desktop.
I them moved it from my desktop to my startup folder and now it works.
The programs that come with it are useless to me. After I saw the demo once I wiped all of them out. The demo on SanDisk Website is much better.
Since I got it for my wife to have continuous backup while she does her Word Docs, it is OK for her.
I recently bought the 4GB version at Staples, after becoming a solid SanDisk Convert, but it only works with my Vista laptop (possibly the only Vista non-disadvantage I’ve come across!) . MOST frustratingly, when I plug it in to my 2.2MHz HP Compaq Presario desktop running XP Professional (where I’d planned on using it for backups), the O/S hangs and, most times, my wireless network gets nuked in the process. Aaarrrghh! Very unimpressed.
I run Mac OS X, I accidentally dragged the U3 file to my desktop, now I can’t remove it because the application to remove it only works with windows. Can anyone suggest something that might help me?
I absolutely love my U3 drive, it gives me everything I need, all in one simple package. I’m a website developer, and since I carry my U3 drive in my wallet, I can plug it in to any windows computer and have everything I need, from Firefox and Trillian to Ultra Edit and Uniform Server. In fact, other than Photoshop (which is duplicated with GIMP) I have just about all the software I use on my U3 drive.
I just purchased a 4GB Ativa on sale at Office Depot for $34 + tax. The first thing I noticed was that the drive itself was lacking the U3 logo that ever so present on all the packaging.
I plugged it in and no software! So I felt like I got gypped. However, from reading all the posts negative in regard to the software, maybe I should regard it as a good thing.
Thanks
I too uninstalled that bloatware that should have never been on a flash drive. I mean really, whats next dvdrw’s with crazy software? Bad idea sandisk. however, I got my 4gb for $37 at radioshack on 8 december
Like Rick, I too just bought the Ativa 4GB USB drive from Office Depot. It is sans the U3 logo and comes with no software. I specifically bought it for the U3 capabilities so I guess I am s.o.l!
I’m actually eagered to purchase one of these just because of the U3 software function:
This function’s obviously perfect for traveler’s or someone who’s away from their computer frequently, in which you’re using other computers. I had to go to ARMY basic training, where I knew I needed access to my own programs/software as simple as Money software for balancing check to using something like Photoshop. (I really hope I can run Photoshop thru this U3 method… Please)
I definitely could have used a flash drive with U3 during basic training. Although I’m already out of the ARMY, Sandisk guys are geniuses. It’s no longer a memory storage device, but almost indirectly like a micro computer!! To offset the storage usage that the program will take up, I think I’ll opt for the 8GB version instead of the 4GB’s. The titanium ones are already sweet looking, but it’d be even nicer if minimal color choices were available … like BLACK : ).
If anybody’s checking this review and know how I can run PHotoshop thru this device, if it’s not simply done thru U3, please notify or advise a method.
I appreciate it.