What is a USB flash drive?
A USB drive is a small, removable and rewritable data storage medium of up to 1 GB. It is NAND-type flash memory incorporated with USB 1.1 or 2.0 interface. It comprises a small printed circuit board covered in a strong plastic or metal casing, which can be easily carried around. A USB connector juts out from the casing and a removable cap covers the connector. It usually has a standard type-A USB connection, which can be connected directly to the computer. Most flash drives do not need external power source or battery power source. They are powered by a USB computer connection.
The USB flash drives are also called by varied names like "pen drives", "chip sticks", "thumb drives", "flash drives", "USB keys", and sometimes, memory sticks. However, ‘memory stick’ is a memory card system patented by Sony, so it is better not to confuse the two.
The Flash drives are much speedier, more convenient and dependable than the floppy disks. These can be used on operating systems like Windows (2000, ME, XP), Mac OS (X, 9) and Linux (2.4 kernel series [1] onwards).
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