Flash drives are also cost-effective. You can securely store a few dozen gigabytes of data for less than $30, and these devices range in storage capacity, price and overall size - equal to the amount you're willing to invest. Some even have special features like lanyards, locks, belt clips and key fobs to make them easier to carry and keep track of.
Some manufacturers, aiming at a "best of both worlds" solution, have produced card readers that approach the size and form of USB flash drives (e.g., Kingston MobileLite,[65] SanDisk MobileMate[66]) These readers are limited to a specific subset of memory card formats (such as SD, microSD, or Memory Stick), and often completely enclose the card, offering durability and portability approaching, if not quite equal to, that of a flash drive. Although the combined cost of a mini-reader and a memory card is usually slightly higher than a USB flash drive of comparable capacity, the reader + card solution offers additional flexibility of use, and virtually "unlimited" capacity. The ubiquity of SD cards is such that, circa 2011, due to economies of scale, their price is now less than an equivalent-capacity USB flash drive, even with the added cost of a USB SD card reader.
A USB flash drive, also commonly known as a thumb drive or a memory stick, is a type of portable data storage device that fits directly into a USB port. It can back up, store, and transfer important data and make that data available to other devices with USB ports. USB drives tend to favor speed and convenience over absolute storage space; discover the wide selection available on eBay.
Floppy disk hardware emulators exist which effectively utilize the internal connections and physical attributes of a floppy disk drive to utilize a device where a USB flash drive emulates the storage space of a floppy disk in a solid state form, and can be divided into a number of individual virtual floppy disk images using individual data channels.
In the arcade game In the Groove and more commonly In The Groove 2, flash drives are used to transfer high scores, screenshots, dance edits, and combos throughout sessions. As of software revision 21 (R21), players can also store custom songs and play them on any machine on which this feature is enabled. While use of flash drives is common, the drive must be Linux compatible.
With wide deployment(s) of flash drives being used in various environments (secured or otherwise), the issue of data and information security remains important. The use of biometrics and encryption is becoming the norm with the need for increased security for data; on-the-fly encryption systems are particularly useful in this regard, as they can transparently encrypt large amounts of data. In some cases a secure USB drive may use a hardware-based encryption mechanism that uses a hardware module instead of software for strongly encrypting data. IEEE 1667 is an attempt to create a generic authentication platform for USB drives. It is supported in Windows 7 and Windows Vista (Service Pack 2 with a hotfix).[47]
"Helps transfer data without bulky external drives....Compared to the Ultra Flash Drives I purchased (which are designed for faster downloads), this Flash Drive took just a little bit longer for downloading a large quantity of items, but it really was not that much of a time difference, so I am extremely satisfied with the speed and abilities of the Cruzer"
Flash drives implement the USB mass storage device class so that most modern operating systems can read and write to them without installing device drivers. The flash drives present a simple block-structured logical unit to the host operating system, hiding the individual complex implementation details of the various underlying flash memory devices. The operating system can use any file system or block addressing scheme. Some computers can boot up from flash drives.
In the arcade game In the Groove and more commonly In The Groove 2, flash drives are used to transfer high scores, screenshots, dance edits, and combos throughout sessions. As of software revision 21 (R21), players can also store custom songs and play them on any machine on which this feature is enabled. While use of flash drives is common, the drive must be Linux compatible.
Capacity - More so than any other feature, capacity will drive the price of a flash drive up the most. So before you make a purchase, consider how much you’re willing to spend on a flash drive and weigh that against how much capacity you’ll likely need. A flash drive with 16GB can cost you as little as $10, while a 128GB one will run up to $60 or more.
External flash drives use what's known as "solid-state" storage, which can store, back up, and retrieve data using only electronic circuits. Solid-state drives do not contain any moving mechanical parts, which enables them to access data quickly and easy. A typical flash drive allows up to 100,000 write/erase cycles before the integrity of the data starts to degrade. This translates to around a 10-year lifespan, depending on how much it is used.
There's a lot to choose from when it comes to buying a flash drive. The most important thing to consider is size. The whole point of a USB drive is to store lots of data in a small space, so think about what kinds of files you'll want to house on your flash drive. Movies and music take quite a bit of space, so if you're carrying your whole entertainment library with you, you'll want a big thumb drive – at least 16GB. Books and other text-based documents require relatively little storage space, so people like students and working professionals using Microsoft Office would be happy transferring Word documents or Excel files with as little as 1GB of space. On the other hand, if you are using photo or music editing software, you'll want a USB flash drive with lots of storage capacity to transfer graphic and music files.
