USB Drives

You may have seen other people with them, you might even have one of your own.  They’re the newest and most convenient way to store data and they look like these:

They also go by various names:  USB Drives, Flash Memory, Flash Drives or even Thumb Drives:

Here's a link to the top 10 weirdest looking USB drives:
http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever/

What you need to know about USB Drives:

1.  They go by several names:  Thumb drives, flash drives, flash memory, SanDisk drives.  The most official name would be just “USB Drive”
   
2. They have much greater storage capacity than old fashioned floppy disks and are easier to carry than CD’s.
   
3. They plug into the USB ports of any computer here at school
   
4. There are two “speeds”:  USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 (2.0 is faster and all new USB drives are 2.0)
   
5. They come in these standard sizes:  128MB,256MB, 512MB, 1GB,2GB.  Most recently USB drives have gotten much larger by the way. 
   
6. Prices for USB drives range from $6-$129.  If a 512MB USB drive costs about $12 that equals about $.02 per MB.  Compare that to the price of an old fashioned 3.5” floppy diskette which holds 1.44 MB's and could cost you about $.20 per MB.
   

To learn more about exactly how Flash Memory works try the video below.

Featured YouTube Video,

How Flash Memory Works:

 PRACTICE ACTIVITY:  Look around for someone else who has a flash drive.  Chances are someone around you might be using one.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  To find more about flash drives try searching the internet for:

How Flash Drives Work
Computer memory
Thumb drives

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