Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Facts About Flash Drives

By Andrew Johnson


Flash drives are a device developed for data storage. These structures include memory and contain a universal serial bus interface, USB, connection. This is what they are commonly referred to as USB drives. Most of these devices are smaller than floppy disks and CD-ROMs and allow for removing and rewriting.

Floppy disks, CD-ROMs and these drives all share a similar purpose, they store information. But these devices usually have more durability because of their design, more capacity, and more reliability. The devices use the USB mass storage standard, which is supported by nearly all modern devices such as Linux, Unix-like operating systems, Windows, and Mac OS X.

These devices get their name because computers write and read flash-drive data. Computers do this using the same commands that they do for mechanical disk drives, so the storage appears on the user interface and computer as another drive. These devices are strong when it comes to their mechanics.

All devices come with a small, electrically-insulated printed circuit board. The board contains the circuit elements and USB connector. It may be protected with rubber, metal or plastic, or have a retractable body or removable cap. Even when not protected, the device is unlikely to face serious damage. Most can be plugged into a computer port via a standard type-A USB connection. There are some devices that connect through other interfaces.

Many old technologies have been combined together to create these compact devices that offer low power consumption and cost. USB development altered the way memory systems work, particularly how they access storage. Furthermore, it led to the development of compact and high-speed devices that we use today. Computers connect with these memory devices just as they would with hard disk devices, and the controller system maintains control over all data that is stored.

There are four parts standard in all of these: NAND flash, USB mass storage controller, standard-A USB plug, crystal oscillators. The oscillators control the data output. The USB plug allows for connection to computers. The storage controller provides some amount of ROM and RAM. And the NAND includes memory chips that can hold data.

These flash drives are used to store data. They connect to most modern computers and are compatible with operating systems. In general, they are preferred over CD-ROMS and floppy disks because they are compact, store large amounts of date, and offer high-speed transfer.




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