Both my wife’s car and mine have aftermarket car stereos that have USB ports for plugging iPods or thumb drives. For obvious reasons, I don’t use CD’s anymore. I have an old (i.e. 2nd gen) 16GB iPod Touch where I put all my latest music downloads. But I needed another medium to store my old favorites, which are mostly rips from original CDs.
The best answer for me would be the highest capacity USB flash drive that I could find. And that took the form of the Sony MicroVault USL-M series.
To date, 32GB is the highest possible capacity in FAT storage format. Anything bigger cannot be formatted using Windows, and might cause stability issues in devices. Finding a 32GB USB drive is a challenge in Manila. But thanks to perseverance I chanced upon the Sony MicroVault like a hidden treasure tucked within the cramped Data Blitz in Park Square. The packaging had a sticker that said “Sony Hong Kong” and I have a hunch that this is a grey market item mixed amongst their other inventory. I doubt if you will find another one like it there, or in any other Data Blitz branch for that matter.
So far the MicroVault has served me well. Transfer speed is decent. Although I must say that the drive got corrupted a couple of times after using it on an Alpine car stereo. I was able to repair the flash drive via a simple format, and I have a feeling it was the Alpine that was at fault, not the thumb drive.
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