GOAL: Free 3.0 Flash Drive

In an effort to get myself out of cloud storage and retain my privacy, I have decided to move my digital life back onto a flash drive.  My problem is that I don’t want to pay for it.  My goal?  Get a nice flash drive without touching my everyday budget.

Currently, I’m dealing with a 2 GB 2.0 USB flash drive.  It’s old.  I bought it back when 2 GB was middle of the road for a flash drive.  Now you can hardly find one that small if you try.

After a small amount of research I discovered that the new 3.0 USB flash drives are mega-fast, as in up to 99 MB per second read speed.  Write speed is probably a fifth of that, but it’s still multiple times faster than the 2.0 drives.  I want it to completely replace my cloud storage so that I can store all portable apps on it, which means I need one that is 32 GB.  Any smaller than that and you just end up kicking yourself down the road.  (Not literally kicking yourself down the road, but “kicking yourself”… “down the road”…)

So how can I get this for free?  By using the online services that pay you in real money.  And by “real money” I mean Amazon gift cards.

I have already gotten a $5 Amazon gift card from Bing and I’m only only 50 points or so away from getting another $5 Amazon card.  Plus, I have discovered http://swagbucks.com which lets you get Amazon gift cards, as well.  On Swagbucks, you have to watch videos, play games, answer polls, take surveys, etc., to get your points.  Each point seems to equate to $.01, so a $25 gift card at Amazon requires 2500 points.  It’s a worthy goal.

Are there any other places to earn Amazon gift cards?  I have tried MTurk but they want your social security number so I just left my $2.67 in earnings on the table.  They can keep it.

I’ll post my update here on my quest for a free USB Flash Drive.

UPDATE (6/17/13):

I currently have enough to get the drive I want but not enough to cover the shipping.  I’m going to be patient and hold out another week so that it’s really free.