The Ultimate Guide to USB Flash Drives: Part II

How to find (and buy) a cheap USB flash drive. The best deals appear when you least expect it...like in this article.

Written by Jonathan "JD" Danylko • Last Updated: April 2nd, 2007 • General •

In the last part, you answered the question why you needed a USB drive and we discussed the different types of USB Drives available. In part 2 of this series, we talk about where to get the best deal on a USB drive.

Where are the deals?

I've seen 1GB USB flash drives at your local Wal-Mart for $30-$50 (UPDATE: ok, they dropped the price on it, but it's still too much), and I wonder why people pay so much. Recently, I just purchased a 2GB SD Card for $4.99 ($20 rebate). Yes, $5!. Ha-HA!

Obviously, the best way is through the Internet. Some brick and mortar (B&M) stores are lowering their prices to compete with the Internet, but I've only seen a couple of stores that compete with the Internet. The deals for USB drives are everywhere.

One place that has their act together is DealNews. They have the entire site in a hierarchical format. When you visit their site, you drill down to the Computers/Storage/Flash Storage/USB drives. They collect all of the deals around the Internet and place them in their own Flash Storage section. They even have an RSS feed or email you can receive when new deals arrive.

Another great place to find deals is at Fat Wallet. Fat Wallet is a bargain hunters dream. At the top of the site, click Forums. On the left hand side, you'll see a section called Hot Deals. The Hot Deals section is where everyone posts the great deals found EVERYWHERE on the Internet. As soon as a community member finds a hot deal, they post it at the Fat Wallet forums. It's like throwing meat to piranhas.

Best Deal Sites

I know I listed two above, but there are tons of other sites out on the Internet. The best way to keep up on the deals are through RSS Readers. If you don't know what an RSS Reader is, I'll refer you here.

For the rest of us, every deal web site (at least the good ones) has one or more RSS feeds exposed so you can syndicate their feed into your own reader and track the deals. Currently, I have 14 deal feeds I receive with deals updated every single day. I'm passing the savings on to you. :-)

  • AntiRebate.com (RSS)
  • BensBargains (RSS)
  • DealDetectives (RSS)
  • DealNews (SD Cards - RSS)
  • DealUniversity (RSS)
  • Digg.com Tech Deals (RSS)
  • FatWallet Hot Deals (RSS)
  • GRUPARE.COM (RSS)
  • Gunn's Deals (RSS)
  • Mr. Cheap Stuff - Coupons and Deals (RSS)
  • NewEgg - Daily Deals (RSS)
  • ResellerRatings.com Deals (RSS)
  • SlickDeals.net (RSS)

When you purchase your USB flash drive through the Internet, the only downside is that you have to wait for your purchase to com

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Jonathan "JD" Danylko is an author, web architect, and entrepreneur who's been programming for over 30 years. He's developed websites for small, medium, and Fortune 500 companies since 1996.

He currently works at Insight Enterprises as an Architect.

When asked what he likes to do in his spare time, he replies, "I like to write and I like to code. I also like to write about code."

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