USB flash drives use the USB mass storage device class standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS and other Unix-like systems, as well as many BIOS boot ROMs. USB drives with USB 2.0 support can store more data and transfer faster than much larger optical disc drives like CD-RW or DVD-RW drives and can be read by many other systems such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, DVD players, automobile entertainment systems, and in a number of handheld devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, though the electronically similar SD card is better suited for those devices.
“The solid state flash drive can theoretically achieve incredibly high transfer speeds, blurring the line between an external solid state drive and a flash drive,” our tester raved. He did note he was “unable to reach higher than half the listed read and write speeds.” However, he explained, “The Extreme Pro is still very fast compared to other USB 3.0 flash drives.” In the end, our tester recommended this flash drive “with the caveat that there's a good chance you won't see those 300+ MB/s transfer speeds.” He also added that for just a little more, you could invest in an external hard drive—if the ultra-compact form factor isn’t important in your buying decision.
Motherboard firmware (including BIOS and UEFI) can be updated using USB flash drives. Usually, new firmware image is downloaded and placed onto a FAT16- or FAT32-formatted USB flash drive connected to a system which is to be updated, and path to the new firmware image is selected within the update component of system's firmware.[49] Some motherboard manufacturers are also allowing such updates to be performed without the need for entering system's firmware update component, making it possible to easily recover systems with corrupted firmware.[50]
USB 2.0 flash drives have a transfer rate of up to 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 flash drives allow for transfer rates 10 times faster — up to 4.8Gbps. However, you can only take advantage of this higher speed if your device has a USB 3.0 port. Although USB 3.0 flash drives and other devices are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports, they will only operate at a USB 2.0 rate.