Do you know the types of flash drives that we have? You may say that yes, you do. However, what if I asked if you know whether all flash drives are the same or not?
I am sure that you would probably say that yes, they are all the same. However, that is not the case, flash drives are not all the same.
We have 2.0 flash and 3.0 flash drives. USB drives are not all produced in the same manner. They vary according to speed, usage, appearance, and storage capacity.
In this article, we will be looking at the types of flash drives that we have.
What Is A Flash Drive?
The flash drive, which is also known as the thumb drive, memory stick, or pen drive, is a technological device that is used to store information on a small flash memory chip.
The owner can read the data on it and save more data on it.
The flash drives have been designed to be much smaller than a normal storage disk. Some are even as small as the size of our thumb.
This is the reason why lash drives are widely known as pen drives, especially in Ghana and Africa as a whole.
The flash drive is not commonly used here. Whatever name you like to call them, they all have one thing in common. They are all connected to a computer. To store information.
How Does A Flash Drive Work
Two types of memory has been designed to save data on different devices. These are volatile and non-volatile.
Volatile memory is temporary data storage. One example of volatile storage is a hard disk drive. It reads and then saves data while the computer is on.
A non-volatile storage device however resorts to power to save data. It can then hold the data even without power.
One example of non-volatile storage is the flash drive as the flash drive can store and hold data without the aid of power.
The flash drive or pen drive does not have any moving parts and it is compatible with several devices that come with a USB port.
Data stored on them cannot be erased unless you can erase them yourself or something happens to the flash drive.
For example, in case the flash drive gets corrupted or dropped in water and stepped on.
The Difference Between A USB 2.0 And A USB 3.0
The USB port is the medium through which the flash drive interacts with your computer. There are different types of USB drives that are made to meet different needs based on the USB ports.
The various main types of flash drives are USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1, and USB 3.2.
The main difference between these flash drive types has to do with their speed and their prices.
However, the prices also vary according to the storage size that you choose as well as the brand of the flash drive that you are buying.
Several other factors determine the price of the flash drive that you are buying.
Difference Between Flash Drives And Pen Drives
The names pen drive and flash are names that are used by people interchangeably. However, that was not the case some years ago. Let us look at each of them separately below.
Flash Drive
These were devices that run on flash memory. Their main aim was to store the information and then transfer it between two computers that were connected.
The connection of the computers was done through a USB port that was on the hardware.
Pen Drive
There were bulkier than flash drives and came with more length. They were given the name ‘pen drive’ due to their elongated sizes.
The pen drives were also run on flash memory and also had a USB interface to communicate with the computers.
Conclusion
The size of both pen drives and flash drives are almost the same today and they all perform the same functions.
They also have the same internals and are compact in form. So today, you cannot tell the difference between the two of them. They are the same today. You can also check out the story of computer storage systems.
