Understanding Flash Drives - What Is It?
Mike Singh
The flash drive was born in 1998 at IBM, as a floppy drive replacement
for the ThinkPad line of products. Almost all people know what a floppy
drive and a floppy disk is - but a larger percentage isn't quite sure
about the flash drive. Technically, it is a "NAND-type flash memory
data storage devices integrated with a USB interface". It is fairly new
to technology, yet many computer literate people enjoy its small size,
lightweight, removable and the fact that it's rewritable. Another huge
advantage is its memory capacity, ranging from 8 megabytes to 64
gigabytes - limited only by the densities of its current flash memory.
Unfortunately, as its capacity moves up, so does the price. Almost all
types of drive use the USB mass storage standard, supported by the
modern operating systems, and most flash drives are active only when
powdered by a USB computer connection. They require no other external
power source or battery source.
There are several advantages of the USB flash drives as compared to the
other portable storage devices, such as the floppy disks, Zip disks,
and the CD-R/CD-RW discs - with the floppy disc as the most popular.
The USB flash drive is much faster, definitely holds more data, and is
more reliable due to their lack of moving parts. They ignore the
scratches and dust that plagues any earlier forms of portable storage,
such as compact discs or floppy disks. Their design means they often
survive impacts, dropped, crushed, and washed with a load of clothing.
Because of all of this, they are perfectly ideal for transporting
personal data or work files from one place to another. The user also
wants to use them for carrying around personal data that they can
access in different places. Being available in 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, and
64MB, they were marketed as the true floppy killer.
If you are the athletic type, a runner or jogger, who likes to listen
to the tunes during your workout you want to look into a flash drive
player. Even if you have a hard drive player it is smart to own a flash
drive player because you'll want to take it running or jogging with you
because the hard drive is bulkier (hence "hard" drive) and weighs more.
It will skip and even break, where a flash drive is more comparable to
the old school walkman players in its durability.
Next, most flash drive players come with neat little additions like a
stopwatch or voice recorder. At first this may sound worthless or
pointless to you, but sometimes a stopwatch can be handy while running
and who hasn't had a great idea while exercising only to have it escape
during the cooling off process? A flash drive player will give you more
extras while coming for a reduced price tag.
Another nice extra when buying a flash drive player is you almost
always have an FM tuner included, meaning if you are tired of the music
you downloaded you can listen to your favorite local station. Flash
drive players give you this, along with what was mentioned above, for a
reduced price tag. Most flash drive players go for as little as $59 and
as much as $149 depending on the brand and the size.
Six percent of the internet usage in year 2000 U.S. will jump to 62% in
2010, due to music downloading and the use of data compression, quickly
transferring music over the internet. Also, a corresponding rise of
portable digital audio players, and digital cameras became very popular
due to their smaller sizes and much reduced cost.
Check out http://www.mp3playertop.com/
for more articles on digital
music players.
<< ------------- End of Free Reprint Article --------------- >>
See Also:
All
Free Articles About Computers & Internet
All Free Information Articles
Find More Free Articles
