• Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I haven’t even found the need for a thumbdrive outside of flashing firmware and storage devices. All my documents are on google drive.

    • tiramichu@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I use them for:

      • Music in my car
      • Moving files to my locked-down work PC
      • The (read only) OS drives for my Unraid NAS servers
      • Media for my parents to watch when they are away on vacation and can plug it into a hotel TV
      • General sneakernetting of large files

      They definitely don’t get as much use as before, but I’m still using them.

      Edit: please don’t downvote the person above me, they are only saying what is true for them :)

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Also in a business context you need them to play displays on screens at conferences usually.

        And students I imagine will frequently use them to print documents at the library, or design students at the print shop

        • FelipeFelop@discuss.online
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          9 months ago

          In my experience all of this has been done wirelessly for several years.

          The risk of malware means you aren’t allowed to plug in sticks. For business use you share a document or wirelessly connect to a display.

          In fact our local library didn’t USB sticks eight years ago when I was researching our family tree.

          • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            Depends. on a 3x3 booth setup with just a screen on a pole with no connectivity - you don’t want to run a cable to a laptop because you’re using the table for product demos

            • FelipeFelop@discuss.online
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              9 months ago

              Don’t mean this rudely, struggling to find a way that doesn’t sound condescending because I know things can be different in different regions. Didn’t realise that still happened.

              • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                I think it “just depends” - not trying to dox myself here but at cloud provider conference at Caesars forum, las vegas in summer of last year this was the setup we had.

    • randombullet@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      Yeah I agree. I have a drive running Ventoy and that’s about it.

      Also if I’m moving a lot of data. I’ll use a NVMe enclosure to speed up the transfer instead of network.

    • Rhaedas@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Be sure to have backups and not that sole location. Same is true of any physical drive, but at least a drive failure might be recoverable. A cloud storage can just be gone one day.

    • Vanon@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I think of “thumb drives” as portable SSD with USB. “Portable backup drives” have taken its place for me. Incredibly fast (NVMe SSD + USB-C), quite small (M2 card size + case), durable (same as thumb drives), growing sizes (1-2 TB affordable).

      I keep my old flash drives for smaller things like bootable apps, fresh OS installs, firmware updates. I definitely have no need for mystery off-brand storage though.