What is a USB Flash Drive?
By Pinky Mcbanon
A USB Flash Drive is a miniature storage device just about the size of your thumb. A typical USB flash drive is about 1-4 inches long and is removable and usually, rewritable. A USB drive can have a capacity ranging from 64MB to 64GB, and the price varies with the capacity and features provided with the drive. USB flash drives have become the most popular portable storage solution and are preferred over other portable storage media like floppy drives.
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a high-speed serial communication protocol used for communication between the computer and the USB flash drive. Connecting and disconnecting a USB flash drive is very simple. This drive can be connected to the computer by plugging it into the USB port. There are no other connectors or power cables required. The drive derives its power from the USB connector itself.
Whenever a USB flash drive is connected to the computer an icon indicating the presence of the drive is displayed in the system tray in a Computer running Windows Operating System. However, it is not advised to simply pull out the drive when you are done with it, you must stop the drive before you disconnect it and this can be done by right clicking the mouse over the USB drive icon in the system tray and stopping the device. Once the message asking you to disconnect the drive is displayed, the drive can be disconnected safely.
The computer treats a USB flash drive just like a hard disk, enabling you to perform all the actions that would normally be done in a hard disk. This includes file movement, modification, saving and deleting data and formatting.
Normally USB flash drives are available with FAT32 file system but they can be formatted to work with any Operating System that supports them.
However, defragmenting a USB flash drive is not advisable as it produces no significant improvement in performance and may actually reduce the life of the drive. This is because the drive uses EEPROM storage that can be written only a fixed number of times and the erasing and rewrite of data performed during defragmenting would shorten the life of the drive.
USB flash drives have several security related features built in to protect your data. It is common to see USB drives with write protection or with biometric security features like fingerprint recognition for a valid user. Since they are very small in size they may also come with provision for attaching a tag that makes it easier to carry.
The data stored in a USB flash drive can be stored reliably for as long as 2 years. They are very sturdy and dropping them does not cause you to lose data. The price to storage ratio is also very good. The downside of USB flash drives are that their small size makes it easy for them to be misplaced or lost or just forgotten. They are very sturdy and dropping them does not cause you to lose data.
Ms. Pinky is a Computer Support Specialist for more than 25 years. Has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Engineering, MS Research work in Systems Engineering.
Get more free computer tips on her blog at http://www.computerhelpdeskandsupport.com/
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