Rugged

[Andrew Soltis]

I have been living in two places. I am too poor to buy a high power laptop. I have two mice, keyboards and monitors. If I haul my mini tower back and forth will it travel well or will my hardware be subject to rapid deterioration?

[Eric Pascarello]

As long as everything is all screwed in tight and the wires are secure you should have no trouble. In the past with old hard drives you could have problems, but today's hard drives can take some shaking.

Just do not run it over with a car or leave it on the roof and drive away!

Eric

[Ashok Mash]

Moving tower boxes around may not be a problem if everything is secured tightly in place, but disconnecting and connecting frequently, you are at the risk of accidentally damaging the connectors, especially the keyboard and mouse and since they are onboard these days, if you damage them trying to plug-in in hurry or something, you will left with a useless mother board!

How about a cheap USB Key? You can buy a decent one (~256MB) for less than $100.

[Andrew Soltis]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with a USB key. Could you post a link to one. My mini tower has two USB ports on the front where I plug my camera in.

[Ashok Mash]

Originally posted by Andrew Soltis:
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with a USB key. Could you post a link to one. My mini tower has two USB ports on the front where I plug my camera in.

USB Key is a common and cheap gizmo thats very popular here in Europe. May be its called a different name in the states (assuming that you are in the USA), but its very cheap and quite practical. Its just a small amout of flash memory, and looks a lot like a pack of Wrigleys with an USB connector at one end. Here are some links.

IBM 256MB USB Key

Cyclone 512MB USB Key @ Amazon

HTH,

Ashok.

[Jeroen Wenting]

though there are more interesting versions out there.
The Devil Ducky Drive: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/6a29/
The Memory watch: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/5eec/
The Swiss Memory: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/6b3b/
The Memory Pen: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/635f/

That's the more wacky ones though (as expected from ThinkGeek).