well, I've been thinking about this for a while and it's been nagging me like crazy! So- here it goes! Which would you prefer? A flash drive or a external hard drive? Feel free to vote for both if you like !

Flash drives are better. More fault tolerant and faster.

Hard drives have capacity by the bucketload, and if the enclosure fails you can always pull the drive out of it and throw it straight into a computer and still access the data stored on it. Generally speaking, flash memory is fast, but with a limited number of write cycles which makes it unsuitable for any long term high-use storage solution.

I prefer external HDs because of it's size.
Speed does not really matter, since I've got eSATA it's pretty fast.

But...

If you want both capacity and speed, look into a hybrid drive.

Flash drives are portable and easy to carry around. External hard drives can store a lot of data since you can stick a 750gb hard drive into an external enclosure. For me, if a flash drive is enough storage, it's the clear choice since you can't just remove an external hard drive and stick it in your pocket but flash drives don't hold very much data.

With the busy world, and the career I chose to follow. It's much easier to lag a little flash drive to present to an employer than an external hard drive. Even though a hard drive can hold a lot more. I suspect in the near future flash drives will be able to hold more, they've already increased in recent years. I like the portal ability of a flash drive, and it's easy to place in a bag.

If I wanted to move a file from one computer to another I would get a flash drive. But if I wanted to store lots of files, then I would get a external hard drive. It depends on what I would be doing. Because they're both useful.

I prefer the sheer size capacity of external hard drives since the small size and ease of transport of flash drives can be negated by uploading files on webhosts (not good for company sensitive material though).

Hard drives win in capacity, but flash drives are better for almost everything else - preformance, reliability, r/w speed, impact resistance, portability and power consupmtion.

In terms of my LifeStyle.

I prefer Flashdrives more cuz i aint a heavy portable storage user. 1 GB Flashdrive is already enough for all files needed for about ...4 animes. Faster and nice pack-rat equipment.

Yet, i do have one external harddrives...just in case for emergency usage. They rock more on Storage and performance. Besides, most of them even have Firewire and USB 2.0 ports ! Not the 3.5 inch i mean..haha!

Flash drives are better, they're less hassle. imho.

Although, I should mention that mine has recently developed what I suspect to be the equivalent of a flash "bad sector" and won't let me use it's full capacity any more... decidedly annoying.

Moral of the story: Whatever you get, get a warranty with it folks ;-)

I've got both. My external HD (USB) is only used to store stuff not kept on my PC. Basically quick backup. My flashdrive is used only to ferry stuff from my home PC to my work PC.

I mean, my flash disc is 1GIG (1 year old) and my HD is 250gig. I do not want to lug my HD around just like that (it also needs a power supply).

Basically it depends on your needs.

Well, I really depend for what purpose do you need them for.
If you need for storage, I p\choose for external HD, but if for portability, flexibility, and don;t need big storage, I will choose Flashdrive.

But for myself I still use Flashdisk more than External HD.

Flash drives with 40 Gb are more costly but i think they dont produce so much heat spinning and lasts longer

Flash drives don't spin. And their lifetime is much much shorter than most reliable hard drives (Maxtor don't fit into this category). Not to mention the limited number of write cycles vs an unlimited (at least until the hard drive dies) writes you get with a hard drive. I'm not sure that 40Gb flash drives even exist.

I would have to go portable hard drive, though I just use my Zen MicroPhoto for all my large-file transport needs. It's a small portable hard drive, and works excellently.

i like both. here's my reasoning:

Flash Drive:
- compact
- cheap (like a 2gb one for $50)
- fast

External Harddrive:
- big capacity
- it's an additional harddrive for your computer and more securer

yeah, some might say that there are some external harddrives that are portable but those are expensive for the price you get. lol.

Depends on what you need them for.

Flash Drive:
- Compact in size
- Inexpensive
- Low power consumption thus no need for extenal power
- No moving parts thus is not prone to damage when it's being moved
- Small storage capacity (the largest one I've seen is a 4gb one)
- Limited write cycles but nearly inifinite read cycles

External Hard Disk Drive:
- Large storage capacity (up to 750gb)
- Lasts up to 10 years on average and the amount of write cycles are larger than flash drives
- Requires external power or two USB plugs
- Has moving parts thus if it's moved the read/write head could crash onto the platters and you lose all your data
- Some external hard drive enclosures are notoriously bad for hard drives 'coz they don't let the platters 'spin-down'. Therefore the motors wear out easily
- Bulky (depending on which one you get I suppose)
- Depending on where you live it costs the same as a moderate sized flash drive

Therefore, if you need to cart small files around the place then the flash drive is the go. But if you want to store stuff then get an external hard disk. Also you could use the external hard disk to cart around larger files (like movie files).

I actually use my MP3 player to move files though

if only flash drives or external hds were in terabytes and cost cheap

^ Lmao... flash drives in the terrabytes range? That's not gonna happen anytime soon my friend!

Anyway, as for hard disk drives... they're slowly getting there. The physical limit of the density of data on the platter is starting to set in. Despite that Seagate has a hard disk drive that can store up to 750gb worth of data.

As for moi... I got 7 x 300gb hard disk drives and thus I don't need any external ones!

external harddrive is still faster, cheaper and offer larger capacity compare to flash drive in the near future. but I prefer flash drive beacuse its much smaller in size.

Flash drives are great for moving files around and keeping small stuff handy. However, hard drives are still king for data storage.

I'm not sure where people get the idea that flash drives are faster than hard drives. There aren't any moving parts, but their performance is still pretty bad compared to HDDs, especially with lots of small files.

Quote by Zangetsu-sslAs for moi... I got 7 x 300gb hard disk drives and thus I don't need any external ones!

Sounds dangerous, you should always keep an offsite backup of your stuff.