For my “Skynet” project, I’ve been looking for a micro 4GB flash drive to hold the various operating systems I’ll be using, operating systems including VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) and FreeNAS, possibly also Solaris and Nexenta Community Edition. Previously I’ve used Talent flash drives, but these seem in short supply, and are usually metal, and I’ve recently read an interesting Product Advisory about the heat from metal flash drives, and also some metal flash drives have been shorting out inside HP ProLiant DL series servers, using embedded versions of VMware vSphere Hypervisor. So my requirements were to find a plastic cased, in-expensive 4GB flash drive. Enter the HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive, this version comes in many different sizes, and is very small.
HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive
HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive on Samsung NC10 Netbook keyboard (yes my keyboard really needs a clean!)
A Micro Flash drive for a Microserver!
Also manufacturered by HP (okay, PNY), so HP on HP should work okay. I found the most cheapest place on the Net, was Play.com, but I’ve had to wait over a week for delivery, delivery is free, but why they had to send them all in individual boxes, I’ll never know. So I’ve not been able to do anything with Skynet, for the last week, waiting for them to arrive.
Eight boxes of HP v165w 4GB flash drives from Play.com
Here is the micro flash drive installed in a HP ProLiant Microserver
HP v165w installed in HP ProLiant Microserver N36L
The micro server, has a purpose built bootable USB socket on the motherboard, designed for booting embedded operating systems, so the four internal SATA disks can be used to store data, so I you can install the OS on a USB stick!
The HP v165w does not have any LED, or flashing light to indicate the device is in read or write mode, for my purpose ideal, but some folk, may like this feature to see what the flash drive is doing, but personally I think it’s too small for general usage, I’ve had to attach my existing flash drive to 2.5″ hard disk spindle to stop losing it in my pocket! I’m also using this device to replace my existing HP v100w flash drives, installed in my existing DL servers, because I keep catching them and snapping them off!
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