USB Flash Drives

The basics of memory

USB flash drives were made possible due to the development of NAND flash memory and the fact they can be powered entirely by the PC (or today tablet or even mobile phone) they're plugged into.

While cloud solutions for storage and transportation of data do exist today, USB flash sticks remain popular, at least in part, due to their simple drag and drop interface. Just attach a USB key to any PC, or Mac or Linux system for that matter, and it will appear as a second drive ready for you to drag over files. Hence, pen drives offer a simple way to store multiple data types - photos, documents, video, and audio - and move this data across systems.

Since most flash sticks use a standard USB 3.1 Type A connector, they more or less work universally. Although drives with USB Type C connectors are now available, these models are intended for use more with laptops, mobile phones, or tablets where this connector type is common.

Long-term backup is possible with USB flash sticks. Modern USB 3.1 connectors allow for data transfer at rates up to 140 Mbit/s and drives now have storage capacity up to 2 terabytes of data, which should be plenty for most use-cases. However, with small form factor external SSDs being common today, the best use for USB pen drives remains transfer of files between PCs.

More info on form factor

While most USB flash sticks are fairly small, there are some models that are extremely tiny, no bigger than a thumbnail. These variants are particularly effective for laptops, smart TVs, or other devices where the priority is to maintain a firm connection rather than pure portability. The larger size USB sticks are much easier to remove and carry around, but when plugged into a laptop for instance, the connection with the device can be broken if the USB stick is slightly disturbed. Whereas with the smaller ones, the connection can be maintained even if the laptop itself is moved.

Other variants do not contain memory themselves, but have slots for micro or standard SD flash memory cards. These offer a very convenient way to transfer data, particularly between PC and cameras, or other devices, that write data directly to memory cards. This is extremely helpful with large DSLR cameras since most cameras of this type save RAW footage to standard size SD cards and relatively few laptops, and even PCs these days, have card readers for that size (although mini-SD card readers are fairly common). Of course it's always possible to link the camera and PC together, but this requires messing around with wires. Often it is easier to just pop the SD card out of the camera, put it in the card reader, and then connect this to your PC.

Additional uses

Another useful application is using a USB drive as a system installer for Windows. This can serve as a backup installation file in case something goes wrong and wipes your systems hard drive. With Linux, however, you can go a step further and not just install your preferred Linux variant via a USB drive, but you can actually run the OS directly from the USB Flash Drive. This is a great way to test out different versions of Linux to find your preferred one.