“You say potato, I say po-tah-toe” might be true for root vegetables, but in the world of drives, little differences can be significant. Take, for instance, a flash drive versus a portable USB drive.
Some people use these terms interchangeably, but that’s not quite correct. A “flash drive” is SSD (Solid State Drive) technology, which stores data like a regular hard drive in most PCs. Flash drives can be used for external storage, as the main storage drive in small laptops, or as portable USB drives.
A USB flash drive is more specific: it’s the industry term for a small roughly thumb-size flash drive that’s made for easy data storage and transfer, and it connects to computers via the USB port.
There is also something called a flash memory card, which is another portable storage device. It’s like the card you use to capture and store photos in your digital camera. However, while all PCs have USB ports, not all PCs have flash card drives.
When comparing USB flash drives, there are a few other words you should know. Or, rather, acronyms.
- Mpbs – Megabits per second: this means how fast your files will be transferred from your PC to your device and usually ranges from 30-50 Mpbs to hundreds. The more Mpbs, the faster you can transfer, but most USB sticks are fast enough for most purposes.
- MB & GB – Megabytes and Gigabytes: This refers to how much the thumb drive can hold. Megabytes are smaller. For example, a 512 MB USB drive will hold just half of what a 1 GB drive can.
- Encryption – All USB flash drives can have their contents encrypted using either hardware-based encryption methods or third-party disk encryption software – which, for those less technically inclined – can be run straight from the USB drive without installation. This means that if your USB flash drive is lost or stolen, your information is protected.
- Autorun – This feature allows you to pre-load graphics, links, flash animation, and other multimedia onto your promotional USB drive and set them to pop up immediately after insertion.
Any questions? If you need a primer on USB vocabulary, contact us!