The entire case of the Kingston flash drive slides into the USB port, making it a tremendously compact and sleek option for data storage. The hole in the back allows it to be attached to a keychain, which ensures you won’t forget it at home when you need it at work. Pros: Affordable, sleek design, good option for travel. Cons: Some found that the small casing made it more delicate Image Courtesy of Amazon
USB Memory Direct® specializes in producing customized usb flash drives for marketing and promotions and has been a leader in the industry for over fourteen years. Whether you are looking for unique custom shaped flash drives or our best selling custom printed usb drives, you will find our customer service, product quality and pricing are second to none.

The various writable and re-writable forms of CD and DVD are portable storage media supported by the vast majority of computers as of 2008. CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R can be written to only once, RW varieties up to about 1,000 erase/write cycles, while modern NAND-based flash drives often last for 500,000 or more erase/write cycles. DVD-RAM discs are the most suitable optical discs for data storage involving much rewriting.

Many people rely exclusively on the cloud for storing their data; it’s convenient and you can get a lot of storage for free. While storing data online certainly has its advantages, it also has serious drawbacks. The most obvious is security. Anything that is kept online is susceptible to security breaches, and news stories about many of the largest corporations suffering hacks only confirms that our online lives are not as safe as we may like.
Installers of some operating systems can be stored to a flash drive instead of a CD or DVD, including various Linux distributions, Windows 7 and newer versions, and macOS. In particular, Mac OS X 10.7 is distributed only online, through the Mac App Store, or on flash drives; for a MacBook Air with Boot Camp and no external optical drive, a flash drive can be used to run installation of Windows or Linux.
Features: 100% New&High Quality Storage Capacity: 32GB Support USB version 2.0 and 1.0 Easy plug and play installation Interface: USB 2.0; Due to the inner system and procedure data will occupy some space and the real capacity will reduce lightly Stylish lightweight; portable,new concept modeling,classic fashion,compact Brisk High Speed; plug and play, in line with USB 2.0 specification, data transfer speed. Compatible with Windows 7/Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS 9.0,Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port required for high speed transfer Support solution for Linux kernel version 2.4 or later version Driveless for OS 9X or up Durable solid-state storage No external power is required 4.5V ~ 5.5V from USB port The data read speed: 8M-18M/S(USB2.0) The data write speed: 3M-7M/S(USB2.

M-Systems, an Israeli company, were granted a US patent on November 14, 2000, titled "Architecture for a [USB]-based Flash Disk", and crediting the invention to Amir Ban, Dov Moran and Oron Ogdan, all M-Systems employees at the time. The patent application was filed by M-Systems in April 1999.[6][1][7] Later in 1999, IBM filed an invention disclosure by one of its employees.[1] Flash drives were sold initially by Trek 2000 International, a company in Singapore, which began selling in early 2000. IBM became the first to sell USB flash drives in the United States in 2000.[1] The initial storage capacity of a flash drive was 8 MB.[7] Another version of the flash drive, described as a pen drive, was also developed. Pua Khein-Seng from Malaysia has been credited with this invention.[8] Patent disputes have arisen over the years, with competing companies including Singaporean company Trek Technology and Chinese company Netac Technology, attempting to enforce their patents.[9] Trek won a suit in Singapore,[10][11] but has lost battles in other countries.[12] Netac Technology has brought lawsuits against PNY Technologies,[13] Lenovo,[14] aigo,[15] Sony,[16][17][18] and Taiwan's Acer and Tai Guen Enterprise Co.[18]


Most flash drives ship preformatted with the FAT32, or exFAT file systems. The ubiquity of the FAT32 file system allows the drive to be accessed on virtually any host device with USB support. Also, standard FAT maintenance utilities (e.g., ScanDisk) can be used to repair or retrieve corrupted data. However, because a flash drive appears as a USB-connected hard drive to the host system, the drive can be reformatted to any file system supported by the host operating system.
Most USB flash drives weigh less than 30 g (1 oz).[31] While some manufacturers are competing for the smallest size[32] with the biggest memory,[33] some manufacturers differentiate their products by using elaborate housings, which are often bulky and make the drive difficult to connect to the USB port. Because the USB port connectors on a computer housing are often closely spaced, plugging a flash drive into a USB port may block an adjacent port. Such devices may carry the USB logo only if sold with a separate extension cable. Such cables are USB-compatible but do not conform to the USB standard.[34][35]
We are specialists, when it comes to producing a custom flash drives to your specifications. Personalized USB drives are great for promotion of your favorite team, non for profit organization, or business. Important marketing information can be loaded on flash drives. You can imprint USB drives with logos for your school, or use it as a gift to employees, or guests at the wedding.
Bulk USB purchases save money, its that simple. By planning ahead and knowing what your promotional flash drive needs will be through the year, you can save on run charges, artwork setup, and shipping. Over the course of the year, this can add up. With bulk USB orders, we can lower the per unit cost. Beyond the cost, by having a quantity of USBs in stock, you lower the risk of running out of your promo item. Take advantage of bulk USB purchasing. You can even order Bulk 256GB USB Flash Drives through iPromo now.
Hardware designers later developed EEPROMs with the erasure region broken up into smaller "fields" that could be erased individually without affecting the others. Altering the contents of a particular memory location involved copying the entire field into an off-chip buffer memory, erasing the field, modifying the data as required in the buffer, and re-writing it into the same field. This required considerable computer support, and PC-based EEPROM flash memory systems often carried their own dedicated microprocessor system. Flash drives are more or less a miniaturized version of this.
Artists have sold or given away USB flash drives, with the first instance believed to be in 2004 when the German punk band Wizo released the Stick EP, only as a USB drive. In addition to five high-bitrate MP3s, it also included a video, pictures, lyrics, and guitar tablature.[58] Subsequently, artists including Nine Inch Nails and Kylie Minogue[59] have released music and promotional material on USB flash drives. The first USB album to be released in the UK was Kiss Does... Rave, a compilation album released by the Kiss Network in April 2007.[60]
Particularly with the advent of USB, external hard disks have become widely available and inexpensive. External hard disk drives currently cost less per gigabyte than flash drives and are available in larger capacities. Some hard drives support alternative and faster interfaces than USB 2.0 (e.g., Thunderbolt, FireWire and eSATA). For consecutive sector writes and reads (for example, from an unfragmented file), most hard drives can provide a much higher sustained data rate than current NAND flash memory, though mechanical latencies seriously impact hard drive performance.

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.
The development of high-speed serial data interfaces such as USB made semiconductor memory systems with serially accessed storage viable, and the simultaneous development of small, high-speed, low-power microprocessor systems allowed this to be incorporated into extremely compact systems. Serial access requires far fewer electrical connections for the memory chips than does parallel access, which has simplified the manufacture of multi-gigabyte drives.
Not everyone wants every file they've ever created available in the cloud. It can put data at risk - not just from hackers or spammers or nosey bosses, but with some providers offering shady terms, you could lose the intellectual rights to anything uploaded. Having a portable memory drive means you don't have to sacrifice mobility for security, though, making flash drives an ideal solution for business people on the go.
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