I am switching to USB Flash Drives and I advise you to do the same

Apple kills Flash for websites

I have a Love/Hate relationship with Apple. When the rolled out their iTouch, iPhones and iPads they refused to support Flash. In affect killing it as a platform.

If your website used Flash, you either updated your website to html5 or just started over. You couldn't afford to have people come to your website looking to hire you and not be able to see your work or maybe your contact information.

Apple may kill Optical Drives

Apple may have similarly sealed the fate of the optical disc drives back in October 2010 by leaving out the optical drive in their Macbook computers. Soon, it will go the way of the floppy disk.

Today most people are connecting to the internet for software rather than buying CDs. Adobe even went so far as to move most all of their software to the cloud. There is just less need for optical drives than a few years ago.

It's a common misconception that burned digital media's shelf-life is infinite. Unlike pressed original DVDs and CDs which are near invulnerable to degradation, burned media have a relatively short life span, typically between 2 to 5 years depending on the quality of the media and the handling of the discs. Had this not been the case there might not have been the move away from them.

USB Flash Drive as an alternative

What will you use going forward instead of the optical drive? The USB Flash Drive or deliver your images through the cloud with online galleries or something like DropBox.

I ordered my USB Flash Drives from http://www.usbmemorydirect.com/ and had my logo put on them.  The more you order the cost per unit does go down quite a bit.

Over a year ago I was getting ready to do this and asked USB Memory Direct for a quote and they sent this to me:

Below are additional pricing options for our classic styles.

Quote 7/24/2012

I wrote back to them late July this year and asked for a quote for quantity of 50 for the 4G drive.  The price went up a little.  

Quote 7/29/2013

I ordered my on July 31st and they arrived at my house on August 5th. They didn't promise them before August 12th, so I was pleasantly surprised on the quick turn around.

While I will continue with some clients to deliver on DVDs, I am seeing these to slowly being phased out.

You don't have to order in bulk

While buying a couple hundred will save you on unit cost USB Memory Direct will print on quantities as low as 20.  My recommendation is to buy the size you most likely will use the most in a larger quantity and then a few in larger capacities in smaller quantities.  Hey buy 100 2G, then maybe 50 4G and then 20 8G size in an order.

My recommendation is to start small and test the supplier for turn around time, quality and durability.

USB Flash Drive Benefits

There are a few benefits to using the USB over the DVD or CD. Speed to put images on the USB is so much faster than burning a disc.

Another benefit is I believe the USB is a much more stable platform than the DVD. I have gone back to earlier DVDs that worked a few years ago and today do not. I have never had this problem with a USB, but with all digital if it isn't in three places it doesn't exist.

Once the images have been taken off by the client and put on their computer or network then the USB can be used for other things. They may use this over and over and every time they do they are reminded of me. It gives me a similar impact of a postcard I send to them that they put up in the office.

USB Flash Drive as deliverable and not archival

I am sure the images are about as safe on a USB Flash Drive as an SSD drive for example. But the best solutions for archival is a system that has the images in three locations.

My use of the USB Flash Drive is to be able to give clients their images using this rather than DVD due to optical drives being less standard on computers.