Tag: Usb Flash Drives

Understanding Usb Flash Drive Functionalities

Lesley Lyon asked:

USB Flash Drives are small, light weight, removable and re-writ able flash memory data storage devices incorporated with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector. 

USB Flash Drives offer several advantages over other portable storage devices like floppy disks in as much as they are more compact and faster can hold more data storage are more reliable due to their lack of moving parts and have a durable design. USB Port appears on almost every current mainstream PC and Laptop.  USB flash drives use the USB Mass Storage Standard.

A USB Flash drive consists of small printed circuit board in a plastic or metal casing and so, USB Flash drive is sturdy enough to be carried in a pocket.  The USB connector protrudes and is safeguarded by a removal cap and a USB Flash drive uses a standard USB connection, which allows to be connected directly to the PC.

To access the data stored on a USB flash drive, it must be connected to a PC and USB Flash drives becomes active only when plugged into a USB connection which is the source of power supply to the USB flash drive.

A small portable flash memory card that is plugged into the computers’ USB port, functions as a portable hard drive.  USB flash drives are also called thumb drives, jump drives, key drives, pen drives or tokens. 

USB flash drives with 32 mega bytes or 64 giga bytes memory capacity is a feasible product regardless of the amount of material to be stored. 

Each USB flash drive has three components – a male type A connector (to interface with a hosting computer system), the USB mass storage controller (to store and balance the information to encrypt, transfer and decode very quickly) and a crystal oscillator (to give the best quality output).

USB Flash drive has a small circuit board and secure case to prevent damage to the circuit board.  The end of the USB Flash drive is simply inserted to a port on the computer and can access the information as long as the computer is connected to a USB hub.  The USB flash drive is a fast and convenient way to save and transfer the data.  A USB flash drive does not need rebooting after it is attached, requires no batteries or an external power supply and is not platform dependent.  USB Flash drive is also available with additional features like password protection and down loadable drivers making it compatible. 

With USB flash drive even when the device is unplugged from the computer or when the computer is powered down with the drive left in, the data is retained for longer periods.  This makes the USB Flash drive convenient for transferring data between the notebook computer and a desktop computer.

USB Flash drives are available at computer retailers or on Internet.

5 Reasons For Owning A USB Flash Drive

Warren Yarnall asked:

There have been a number of wonderful inventions during the 20th and 21st century. Some of these creations have been both massive and minute. Very few of mankinds modern creations have revolutionized working life so much as the USB flash drive though. Ok now that might seem a bit much for some people but the reality remains the same – USB flash drives have made the working lives of millions of office workers, teachers, students, IT and other professionals massively more simple. If you already one (or a few) USB flash drives then you’ll know just how incredibly useful they are. If you don’t already own at least one USB memory stick then hopefully this article will help convince you of their absolute usefulness in both your working and personal life.

So what’s so great about USB flash drives?

Small

Prior to the creation of USB flash drives all external storage devices for computers were either bulky or awkward (dozens of blank discs for example) or sometimes an annoying combination of being both bulky and awkward. USB flash drives are also called Thumb Drives because they’re about the size of your thumb (although some are much smaller now) and you can easily fit several gigabytes of data in your jeans or shirt pocket thus eliminating the bulky and awkward factor straight away.

Portable

USB flash drives are about the single most portable data backup device possible. They don’t require an external power source of any kind, nor do you need any cables or tools to set them up and last but not least they don’t require any additional software to be installed for them to work on any modern computer (Windows XP, 2000 and Vista and most Macs) so you can quite literally pick them up and use them anywhere you want.

Reliable

Once the data is stored on a USB flash drive you can rest assured that it’s going to stay there and be there when you next need it. This is totally unlike the world of floppy disks or rewriteable CD/DVD discs where they can just stop working for no apparent reason. Flash drives were built to provide consistent and reliable performance. Most of these drives come with built-in write protection to prevent you from overwriting your own important data – if you were silly enough to do so.

Tough

For years people fiddled with boxes of floppy disks and CDs/DVDs. These were bulky, easily lost and easily damaged. External hard drives also provided another method of transporting data between systems but the smallest jolt was and is enough to kill an external hard disk stone dead. USB flash drives are based on what’s called Solid State Memory – this simply means that it’s the same as standard computer memory in that it has no moving parts and is therefore almost impossible to damage (except for jumping up and down on it or maybe hitting it with a hammer for example. Please don’t test either of these theories at home!)

Mass Storage

The first USB thumb drives only offered between 16MB and 64MB of storage space. The incredible popularity of these drives has driven the desire for more and more storage space to new heights every few months. Currently 8GB USB drives are becoming pretty common and it won’t be long before the 12GB and 24GB models hit the market. To put this in perspective 8GB is enough to hold 2 full DVD quality movies or about 2,700 high quality MP3 files – surely this is enough for you? No?

The portability of the USB flash drive combined with reliability and the more than generous storage provided by such a tiny device make them the smart choice for anyone who needs to move files between PCs or simply just keep a second copy of their most precious data on a secure and reliable storage device.

The Similarities Between USB Flash Drives and MP3 Players

Derek Rogers asked:

Today’s MP3 players, like Apple’s iPod, are basically fancy USB drives with built in control mechanisms and a hefty price tag. Unlike USB flash drives, most MP3 players lack the ability to share data files, DVD movies and photos easily.

USB flash drives are not only capable of easily sharing music, but can transfer any file that can be stored on a home PC quicker than using CD-ROMs.

MP3 players require a separate program for your computer to be able to upload music or download existing tunes stored on the device. Sometimes these programs are memory intensive or poorly written, making the task more of a headache than it’s worth. Even Apple’s iPod lacks the ability to download songs from the device to a computer, due to copyright infringement worries.

This is all well and good, until you want to place a song from a CD you bought and ripped to your computer at home to the computer at the office using the iPod as a transfer medium. In addition, you are required to download or install the MP3 player’s proprietary program to each computer.

USB flash drives are different; they act as any other storage device used for your computer. Once you plug the device into an available USB slot, the files stored on it become a new drive in your computer’s directory, the files can then be saved, deleted, moved, or renamed just as with any other system folder. This makes sharing music between computers a breeze.

You simply load the drive up with your favourite music and carry it to another computer. Once the drive is plugged in, the music can be played directly from the USB drive or the songs may be copied to a folder on the computer’s hard drive for later use. No mess, no fuss.

One of the advantages of having an MP3 player is the ability to connect it to your car’s stereo system to listen to your music on the road. More and more car stereo manufactures are building USB slots into their products now, though. With a USB slot built into your stereo, you simply plug a USB drive in and all the music stored on the drive will be available to your stereo without added equipment. What’s more, many brands of receivers will read MP3 tags and display the title information for the songs and albums, depending on your model.

USB friendly MP3 players can also be plugged into these slots, but the play control remains with the MP3 player instead of the in-dash radio. Multitasking is not a skill you want to develop while driving!

USB flash drives are also considerably cheaper than their fancier counterparts. Leave a USB drive in your car in a bad part of town and it will probably still be there on your return. Leave an iPod, and it’s a pretty safe bet that it will be missing soon after you leave. Capable of storing the same amount of songs as twenty or more CDs, depending on drive size and data compression, the cost of a stolen flash drive pales in comparison to the cost of replacing a case filled with compact disks.

The only decisive advantage MP3 players have over flash drives is the ability to directly plug in a pair of headphones. In this day and age, though, how often are we without a computer or car stereo close at hand?

Anti-malware Sandisk Enterprise Cruzer Usb Drive

Tape4backup asked:

The SanDisk Cruzer USB drive is password protected. On all stored files, obligatory access control is imposed by the SanDisk Cruzer drive. All the files are stored in password protected & hardware encrypted partition. Therefore the data stored in the Cruzer USB drive is protected and secure in event of theft or loss of flash drive. An automated malware scanning mechanism is included in the SanDisk USB drives that make sure that the corporate network and the USB flash drives are free and safe from malicious code. The USB borne dangers and threats are prevented and detected automatically by the scan engine to protect the data.

SanDisk FIPS edition USB drive includes the FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) 140-2 level-2 encryption certification. Obligatory Access control is imposed on all files by this device instead of depending on the consumers to secure the files. Data is stored in secure partition and the AES hard ware based 256 bit encryption is implemented. SanDisk enterprise flash drives have management console called CMC (central management and control). Tasks including drive termination, data backup, preliminary user deployment, and recovery of password are allowed by CMC. The company policies are continuously enforced and activities of monitoring & tracking are provided by the CMC beyond the organization network. Security measures are incorporated in the SanDisk professional USB drives and they do not need management through the console of CMC. SanDisk USB drive also has the useful feature of 256 bit AES encryption that is independent of OS. It has special area for the sensitive and critical data files that is password protected. The USB drive has a lockdown mechanism that locks the device after certain number of attempts is made by entering wrong password.

The SanDisk enterprise drives are secure and safe substitute to the complete shut down of the utilization of flash drives within an organization. These drives facilitate the organization employees to transport and move the data in controlled and safe way. Therefore if the USB drive is stolen or lost, then the valuable data and information can not be accessed. Each of the files that are either copied or saved to the SanDisk USB drive is examined and is scanned by the scan engine. Scan engine not only scans the files, but it also protects the data stored on the USB flash drive. This USB drive is password protected.

SanDisk USB drive uses the protection mechanism of anti-malware. Therefore in this way the USB drive does not become a carrier of malicious code and hence the other systems can be protected from being infected as the data is transferred from one system to the other. Mobile workforce is increasingly rapidly with the passage of time and so the new threats also proliferate. Therefore it is essential for the enterprises to take necessary measures in order to protect and secure their portable device from malicious code. SanDisk central management and control sever software manages the USB drives. In this way the I.T mangers are more facilitated as passwords can be renewed and recovered through the network. The information technology managers have the advantage of monitoring the usage. The lost drives can be terminated remotely by the I.T managers and they also have the option to centrally restore and backup the data.

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What is a USB Flash Drive?

Derek Rogers asked:

USB Flash drives are considered to be one of the most popular storage devices on the market. They were first introduced to the public by IBM in 1998. They received instant popularity when they were launched and they have replaced both floppy discs and CDs. You can take them anywhere, on your key ring, in your wallet, or in your pocket. One benefit is the fact that they are rewritable, meaning that they can keep all of the memory stored without a power supply.

The USB flash drive comes in various formats: a 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, 128GB etc. The one that you choose depends on how much storage you need and how much you are willing to pay for the device. As of 2006, there were USB flash drives that could hold as much as 16GB of information and could be used with any computer as long as it supports the USB mass storage file system. Most computers have this format and it is very hard to not find one that has it. USB flash drives are also known as “chip sticks”, “thumb drives”, “pen drives”, and “USB keys”.

Flashbay is one company that is a leading provider in USB flash drives, as well as other forms of storage devices. They have all different flash drives available, in multiple colours and storage formats. You can also have the USB flash drives monogrammed with your name or a company logo for business purposes.

When USB flash drives were first introduced to the public, they were very simple in style and shape. Usually, if they were available in different colours, then it was only primary colours. Many of the devices were not even patented yet, and IBM was one of the sole companies that sold the products.

Now, you can purchase a USB drive in any colour, style, company, etc.

In order to better explain the process, USB stands for “Universal Standard Bus”. This means that it is a port that can be used with any type of computer to access a number of accessories, programs, and files. A USB flash drive is compact and acts as a removable storage device that allows the user to store very large quantities of information without losing it when the device is removed.

Inside of the tiny device is a small printed circuit board that is enclosed in a sturdy plastic shell and sometimes a metal shell. For extreme hard wearing, metal is the way to go. The only part of the device that you can remove from the shell is the cap. It protects the USB protruded end of the device that connects to the computer.

You do not need another power source or a battery for the USB flash drive to function on the computer.

However, the only way to access any of the information on the port is to be connected to a computer. Students find that a USB flash drive is essential for all of their important documents. Most high school students and college students are always having to use a computer for their school work. Instead of using paper, they can simply store all of the information on the USB flash drive.

In recent years, floppy discs were thought to be easily damaged or could be erased if you held them in a particular way. CDs are also easily scratched. With the use of a USB flash drive you can save your desktop programs so that you can access them from another computer. The future for the flash drives is very large and they are only thought to improve from here on out.