@ed_p wrote:
The market wants USB drives that are able to be partitioned. A single partition is fine for 4 GB, 8 Gb even 16GB drives but 128 GB it too big and the number keeps getting larger. If you want to be sure the USB drive you buy is removable, buy small size.
In five to ten years, if history is any kind of a guide, 128GB or 256GB sized single partition USB memory sticks might be laughably trivial in comparison with the needs of the ‘market’. I myself am having to upgrade to double size once every two years on average (a bit less actually). That is just to keep up with my normal professional tasks. Note that those tasks haven’t themselves changed over the years. Just the requirements on the base storage space on a Removable Disk when performing those tasks.
It is an extreme act of hubris to try and anticipate just exactly what the entire market will be like in that time frame, and I will try and avoid doing so myself, except by perhaps suggesting again that we look at history as a guide. But I recommend that Sandisk dances to its own tune and not subscribe to Microsoft’s shortsighted vision of the world. I would also recommend that the next time they go for such a fundamental change to a key part of their product base, that they atleast provide the tools such that the key customers in that primary market can use the technology as they need to for their particular demands. If they can’t provide that flexiblity, then they should get out of the business altogether.
And I guess there’s no reason to play any cards close to the vest at this point is there? There are several existing programs out there on the market that will partition a USB Removable Disk, no problem. And there are OS’s that will recognize all of the partitions on that Removable Disk, no problem. The problem is that none of them are owned by Microsoft, and neither is the patent for such technology. So the only way of being able to partition a USB Removable Disk with Microsoft’s default disk management software, and/or to recognize any multiple partitions, outside of Microsoft spending some big money (or using true open source licensed software), is to have the USB memory stick be seen as a Fixed Disk. Gosh, what a surprise. 
I just hope that if Sandisk decides to merrily go along with some Windows-9-to-Go requirement that all USB Removable drives become Fixed Disks, then they atleast provide some facilities for those of us who live in the real world outside of Microsoft’s veiled perception of how they thought things would be (as opposed to how they actually are).
