USB Flash Drive & Memory Stick Article
A USB flash drive
or USB memory stick as they are more often know offer perhaps
the easiest way to back and transport data.
These incredibly portable memory sticks simply plug into the USB
port of any pc.
If your running
windows 2000,XP or Vista then the operating system already has
USB memory stick compatibility built in, this means no drivers
needed, simply plug-in, wait a few seconds and hay presto you
now have a fully functional drive which can be accessed through
my computer.
There can be a lot of
confusion with USB memory sticks as they have so many different
names, but in essence they are all the same. Names include USB
sticks , USB Drive , USB Flash drive , flash stick , thumb drive
, USB memory stick & thumb drive .
Many of the names
above only based loosely when it comes to the accuracy of the
actual drive, but they all are same and do the same thing.
The Physical size
This can be as small as about and inch and up to around 3 inches
for the larger and usually older types, some of them come with
the ability to put them onto a keychain which is very useful,
but make sure they are not going to be squashed too much.
Although USB flash drives are robust they can still be broken if
not looked after.
USB memory sticks
come in various sizes
They can be as small as 16mb for the much older types and as
large as around 6gb at the time of writing this article.
For some of the
larger ones though you’ll need to have a USB adapter as many are
simply flash memory card and require an adapter to be able to
connect to a USB port. If you need something with even more
capacity checkout our external hard drive article below, where
we advise on various other portable solutions.
The Price
How much does a USB memory stick cost ? This really depends on
the size, for a 16mb USB stick it will be only a few dollars,
for a newer drive you could be looking at around $120 dollars
for a 4gb drive, but looking around good deals can be had on the
USB flash drives in the range of 1 to 2gb.
Conclusion
The USB memory stick is a good way to backup data, but it’s not
considered the best way, although 6gb may sound like a lot of
storage, this will get filled up quickly and you only get one
backup.
Other solutions such as tapes or DVD’s means you can have a
cycle of backups as opposed to carrying all your eggs in one
basket so to speak.
NOTE
If your pc or laptop only has USB type 1 ports then the data
transfer rates to a USB memory stick will be relatively slow.
Make sure that your pc or laptop has USB type 2 ports which are
around 9 times faster. If you don’t have USB type 2 ports you
can upgrade by adding a USB 2 card to either a pc or laptop,
checkout our USB guides.
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A USB memory stick or flash drive is a very easy way to backup
...
A USB flash drive or USB memory stick as they are more often
know offer perhaps the easiest way to back and transport data.
These incredibly portable memory ...
www.computer-adviser.com/USB-flash-drive.html
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usb memory stick article |
