usb flash drive components

The drives are less fragile mechanically and magnetically than tapes. USB flash drives have been integrated into other commonly carried items, such as watches, pens, laser pointers, and even the Swiss Army Knife; others have been fitted with novelty cases such as toy cars or Lego bricks. Some preloaded drives are read-only, while others are configured with both read-only and user-writable segments. [8] Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the exact type of memory chip used, and are thought to physically last between 10 and 100 years under normal circumstances (shelf storage time[9]). [45] There is virtually no limit to the number of reads from such flash memory, so a well-worn USB drive may be write-protected to help ensure the life of individual cells. Like all flash memory devices, flash drives can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before the drive fails. While use of flash drives is common, the drive must be Linux compatible. Maintenance tasks, such as virus scanning or low-level data repair, without the primary host operating system loaded. USB connector cover or cap reduces the risk of damage, prevents the entry of dirt or other contaminants, and improves overall device appearance. In limited circumstances these drives have been shown to have security problems, and are typically more expensive than software-based systems, which are available for free. Transfer rates may be given in megabytes per second (MB/s), megabits per second (Mbit/s), or in optical drive multipliers such as "180X" (180 times 150KiB/s). [25], By 2010, the maximum available storage capacity for the devices had reached upwards of 128GB. In Windows Vista and later versions, ReadyBoost feature allows flash drives (from 4GB in case of Windows Vista) to augment operating system memory.[60]. ", Wikipedia entry "Soldering Defects in Electronics, Wikipedia entry "Processes Electronic Components (PCBs)", "USB Killer is a flash drive designed to fry your laptop", "You Can Donate Old USB Drives to These Activists to Help Free North Koreans of Propaganda", "Flash Drives For Freedom: Your Old USB Drives Can Help Overthrow Dictatorships", "Flashdrives for freedom? A drawback to the small physical size of flash drives is that they are easily misplaced or otherwise lost. Original flash memory designs had very limited estimated lifetimes. [citation needed], In the arcade games Pump it Up NX2 and Pump it Up NXA, a specially produced flash drive is used as a "save file" for unlocked songs, as well as for progressing in the WorldMax and Brain Shower sections of the game. Given these competing claims to inventorship, patent disputes involving the USB flash drive have arisen over the years. While any standalone application can in principle be used this way, many programs store data, configuration information, etc. Transfer speeds are technically determined by the slowest of three factors: the USB version used, the speed in which the USB controller device can read and write data onto the flash memory, and the speed of the hardware bus, especially in the case of add-on USB ports. Some computers can boot up from flash drives. Some are equipped with an I/O indication LED that lights up or blinks upon access. Standard 120mm optical discs are larger than flash drives and more subject to damage. Some file systems are designed to distribute usage over an entire memory device without concentrating usage on any part (e.g., for a directory) to prolong the life of simple flash memory devices. However, for installation of Windows 7 and later versions, using USB flash drive with hard disk drive emulation as detected in PC's firmware is recommended in order to boot from it. This completely standalone device can instantly and permanently damage or destroy any host hardware that it is connected to. Semiconductor corporations have worked to reduce the cost of the components in a flash drive by integrating various flash drive functions in a single chip, thereby reducing the part-count and overall package-cost. Flash drives can be set up to automatically launch stored presentations, websites, articles, and any other software immediately on insertion of the drive using the Microsoft Windows AutoRun feature. The most common use of flash drives is to transport and store personal files, such as documents, pictures and videos. These speeds are for optimal conditions; real-world speeds are usually slower. Most of these players can also be used as a conventional flash drive, for storing files of any type. However, while virtually all PCs have USB ports, allowing the use of USB flash drives, memory card readers are not commonly supplied as standard equipment (particularly with desktop computers). USB flash drives use the USB mass storage device class standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS and other Unix-like systems, as well as many BIOS boot ROMs. The drive may be blank, or preloaded with graphics, documentation, web links, Flash animation or other multimedia, and free or demonstration software. The Mount Rainier standard addresses this shortcoming in CD-RW media by running the older file systems on top of it and performing defect management for those standards, but it requires support from both the CD/DVD burner and the operating system. Some devices combine the functionality of a portable media player with USB flash storage; they require a battery only when used to play music on the go. Most fingerprint scanning drives rely upon the host operating system to validate the fingerprint via a software driver, often restricting the drive to Microsoft Windows computers. USB plug provides a physical interface to the host computer. This is a particular problem if they contain sensitive data (see data security). Examples include the Creative MuVo, Philips GoGear and the first generation iPod shuffle. [44] Nowadays Triple-level Cell (TLC) is also often used, which has up to 500 write cycles per physical sector, while some high-end flash drives have single-level cell (SLC) based memory that is good for around 30,000 writes. Computers access modern[update] flash memory systems very much like hard disk drives, where the controller system has full control over where information is actually stored. This technology is termed FlashCP. [41] However, some sources claim[42] that defragmenting a flash drive can improve performance (mostly due to improved caching of the clustered data), and the additional wear on flash drives may not be significant. Motherboard firmware (including BIOS and UEFI) can be updated using USB flash drives. In contrast to SD cards, write protection on USB flash drives (when available) is connected to the drive circuitry, and is handled by the drive itself instead of the host (on SD cards handling of the write-protection notch is optional). There are typically five parts to a flash drive: Most USB flash drives weigh less than 30g (1oz). Flash drives are cheaper than many other backup systems. If a user sets up a Password Reset Disk, it can be used to reset the password on the computer it was set up on. Storage capacities in this range have traditionally been considered to offer adequate space, because they allow enough space for both the operating system software and some free space for the user's data. Most of the time, a break at the stress point tears the joint from the printed circuit board and results in permanent damage. Such dual-partition drives are more expensive.[66]. "Jump drive" redirects here. [87] Until 2008, SanDisk manufactured a product called SD Plus, which was a SecureDigital card with a USB connector.[88]. The quality control of some manufacturers does not ensure a proper solder temperature, further weakening the stress point. On a USB flash drive, one end of the device is fitted with a single USB plug; some flash drives additionally offer a micro USB plug, facilitating data transfers between different devices. Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, "Keychain Not Included: The Five Highest-Capacity USB Flash Drives for Your Digital Life", "The Largest Flash Drives | Digital Trends", "Understanding Life Expectancy of Flash Storage", "Who Invented the USB Flash Drive? These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer's main RAM rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive. DVD-RAM discs are the most suitable optical discs for data storage involving much rewriting. Applications must be modified for the U3 platform not to leave any data on the host machine. [19][20][21] However, despite these lawsuits, the question of who was the first to invent the USB flash drive has not been definitively settled and multiple claims persist. Compared with floppy disks or CDs, they are smaller, faster, have significantly more capacity, and are more durable due to a lack of moving parts. Flash drives can be defragmented. [35] While some manufacturers are competing for the smallest size,[36] with the biggest memory, offering drives only a few millimeters larger than the USB plug itself,[37] some manufacturers differentiate their products by using elaborate housings, which are often bulky and make the drive difficult to connect to the USB port. Such cables are USB-compatible but do not conform to the USB standard.[38][39]. [28] By July 2016, flash drives with 8 to 256GB capacity were sold more frequently than those with capacities between 512 GB and 1 TB. (Part II)", "What is the Life Cycle of a USB Flash Drive? [citation needed], In the arcade game Dance Dance Revolution X, an exclusive USB flash drive was made by Konami for the purpose of the link feature from its Sony PlayStation 2 counterpart. [29] In 2018, SanDisk announced a 1TB USB-C flash drive, the smallest of its kind. As a result, the stress point is where the two pieces join. COFEE is a set of applications designed to search for and extract digital evidence on computers confiscated from suspects. Inside the casing is a small printed circuit board, which has some power circuitry and a small number of surface-mounted integrated circuits (ICs). Data stored on flash drives is impervious to mechanical shock, magnetic fields, scratches and dust. on the hard drive and registry of the host computer. USB flash drives draw power from the computer via the USB connection. The memory in flash drives was commonly engineered with multi-level cell (MLC) based memory that is good for around 3,000-5,000 program-erase cycles. The USB plug is usually retractable or fitted with a removable protective cap. Drives typically use the USB mass storage device class to communicate with the host.[32]. Because the USB port connectors on a computer housing are often closely spaced, plugging a flash drive into a USB port may block an adjacent port. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Altering the contents of a particular memory location involved copying the entire field into an off-chip buffer memory, erasing the field, modifying the data as required in the buffer, and re-writing it into the same field. [26] USB 3.0 was slow to appear in laptops. IEEE 1667 is an attempt to create a generic authentication platform for USB drives. [82], The New York-based Human Rights Foundation collaborated with Forum 280 and USB Memory Direct to launch the "Flash Drives for Freedom" program. With wide deployment(s) of flash drives being used in various environments (secured or otherwise), the issue of data and information security remains important. [55], Also, HP has introduced a USB floppy drive key, which is an ordinary USB flash drive with additional possibility for performing floppy drive emulation, allowing its usage for updating system firmware where direct usage of USB flash drives is not supported. Flash memory combines a number of older technologies, with lower cost, lower power consumption and small size made possible by advances in semiconductor device fabrication technology. In the arcade game In the Groove and more commonly In The Groove 2, flash drives are used to transfer high scores, screenshots, dance edits, and combos throughout sessions. Pretec introduced a similar card, which also plugs into any USB port, but is just one quarter the thickness of the Lexar model. As of 2013, single-packaged devices with capacities of 1TB are readily available,[59] and devices with 16GB capacity are very economical. USB flash drives with images of dragons, cats or aliens are very popular in Asia. CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R can be written to only once, RW varieties up to about 1,000 erase/write cycles, while modern NAND-based flash drives often last for 500,000 or more erase/write cycles. The development of high-speed serial data interfaces such as USB made semiconductor memory systems with serially accessed storage viable, and the simultaneous development of small, high-speed, low-power microprocessor systems allowed this to be incorporated into extremely compact systems. Since first appearing on the market in late 2000, as with virtually all other computer memory devices, storage capacities have risen while prices have dropped. [17] Finally Pua Khein-Seng, a Malaysian engineer, has also been recognized by some as a possible inventor of the device.[18]. Usually, new firmware image is downloaded and placed onto a FAT16- or FAT32-formatted USB flash drive connected to a system which is to be updated, and path to the new firmware image is selected within the update component of system's firmware. In addition to five high-bitrate MP3s, it also included a video, pictures, lyrics, and guitar tablature. It is supported in Windows 7 and Windows Vista (Service Pack 2 with a hotfix).[52]. In October 2010, Apple Inc. released their newest iteration of the MacBook Air, which had the system's restore files contained on a USB hard drive rather than the traditional install CDs, due to the Air not coming with an optical drive.[61]. [56][57], Most current PC firmware permits booting from a USB drive, allowing the launch of an operating system from a bootable flash drive. Furthermore, when internal wear-leveling is applied to prolong life of the flash drive, once failure of even part of the memory occurs it can be difficult or impossible to use the remainder of the drive, which differs from magnetic media, where bad sectors can be marked permanently not to be used.[79]. Flash memory uses floating-gate MOSFET transistors as memory cells. This page was last edited on 26 July 2022, at 08:57. Such a configuration is known as a Live USB.[58]. Digital audio files can be transported from one computer to another like any other file, and played on a compatible media player (with caveats for DRM-locked files). Some of these "PC lock" devices also function as normal flash drives when plugged into other machines. Like flash drives, hard disks also suffer from file fragmentation, which can reduce access speed[citation needed]. [6][7] As of 2018, 2TB flash drives were the largest available in terms of storage capacity. A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive)[1][note 1] is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A minority of flash drives support biometric fingerprinting to confirm the user's identity. Smaller optical media do exist, such as business card CD-Rs which have the same dimensions as a credit card, and the slightly less convenient but higher capacity 80mm recordable MiniCD and Mini DVD. Furthermore, for installation of Windows XP, using USB flash drive with storage limit of at most 2 GB is recommended in order to boot from it. Flash drives' ability to do this is their major advantage over optical media. Most flash drives ship preformatted with the FAT32, or exFAT file systems. Floppy disk hardware emulators exist which effectively utilize the internal connections and physical attributes of a floppy disk drive to utilize a device where a USB flash drive emulates the storage space of a floppy disk in a solid state form, and can be divided into a number of individual virtual floppy disk images using individual data channels. [68], Lexar is attempting to introduce a USB FlashCard, which would be a compact USB flash drive intended to replace various kinds of flash memory cards. The examples given are chosen to illustrate extremes.[51]. Most USB-based flash technology integrates a printed circuit board with a metal tip, which is simply soldered on. As of software revision 21 (R21), players can also store custom songs and play them on any machine on which this feature is enabled. Having this second space allows the manufacturer to use a single printed circuit board for more than one storage size device. Packet-writing utilities such as DirectCD and InCD are available but produce discs that are not universally readable (although based on the UDF standard). [54] Some motherboard manufacturers are also allowing such updates to be performed without the need for entering system's firmware update component, making it possible to easily recover systems with corrupted firmware. While disk-based backup is now the primary medium of choice for most companies, tape backup is still popular for taking data off-site for worst-case scenarios and for very large volumes (more than a few hundreds of TB). Unlike solid-state memory, hard drives are susceptible to damage by shock (e.g., a short fall) and vibration, have limitations on use at high altitude, and although they are shielded by their casings, they are vulnerable when exposed to strong magnetic fields. However, because a flash drive appears as a USB-connected hard drive to the host system, the drive can be reformatted to any file system supported by the host operating system. Therefore, USB flash units can be partitioned just like hard disk drives. However, there are USB drives with fingerprint scanners which use controllers that allow access to protected data without any authentication.[75]. Channel Five's Gadget Show cooked one of these flash drives with propane, froze it with dry ice, submerged it in various acidic liquids, ran over it with a jeep and fired it against a wall with a mortar. A flash drive consists of a small printed circuit board carrying the circuit elements and a USB connector, insulated electrically and protected inside a plastic, metal, or rubberized case, which can be carried in a pocket or on a key chain, for example. Some devices level the usage by auto-shifting activity to underused sections of memory. [40] The small size, robustness and cheapness of USB flash drives make them an increasingly popular peripheral for case modding. These had limited capacity, were slow for both reading and writing, required complex high-voltage drive circuitry, and could be re-written only after erasing the entire contents of the chip. They are easy to lose and facilitate unauthorized backups. High speed has become a standard for modern flash drives. Premature failure of a "live USB" could be circumvented by using a flash drive with a write-lock switch as a WORM device, identical to a live CD. Through 2010, the majority of laptop models still contained only USB 2.0. Flash drives implement the USB mass storage device class so that most modern operating systems can read and write to them without installing device drivers. The basis for USB flash drives is flash memory, a type of floating-gate semiconductor memory invented by Fujio Masuoka in the early 1980s. As of mid-2005[update],[needs update] this was an expensive alternative to standard password protection offered on many new USB flash storage devices. Flash drives also have disadvantages. In some cases a secure USB drive may use a hardware-based encryption mechanism that uses a hardware module instead of software for strongly encrypting data. Some manufacturers deploy physical authentication tokens in the form of a flash drive. They are slower than their flash-based counterparts. When used in the same manner as external rotating drives (hard drives, optical drives, or floppy drives), i.e. Password Reset Disk is a feature of the Windows operating system. Most weigh less than 30g (1oz). Alternatively, the drive can be left inserted through the business day, and data regularly updated. Transport aid the cap or the body often contains a hole suitable for connection to a, Some drives offer expandable storage via an internal, Bootstrapping an operating system install or. In mid-2009, 256GB drives became available, with the ability to hold many times more data than a DVD (54 DVDs) or even a Blu-ray (10 BDs).[68]. Sectors are 512 bytes long, for compatibility with hard disk drives, and the first sector can contain a master boot record and a partition table. SanDisk has also introduced a new technology to allow controlled storage and usage of copyrighted materials on flash drives, primarily for use by students. Newer devices are built with USB flash drive support. Some hard drives support alternative and faster interfaces than USB 2.0 (e.g., Thunderbolt, FireWire and eSATA). External hard disk drives currently cost less per gigabyte than flash drives and are available in larger capacities. Flash drives also store data densely compared to many removable media. Until about 2005, most desktop and laptop computers were supplied with floppy disk drives in addition to USB ports, but floppy disk drives became obsolete after widespread adoption of USB ports and the larger USB drive capacity compared to the "1.44 megabyte" (1440 kilobyte) 3.5-inch floppy disk. This required considerable computer support, and PC-based EEPROM flash memory systems often carried their own dedicated microprocessor system. The small discs are more expensive than the standard size, and do not work in all drives. Transcend is the only manufacturer of USB flash drives containing such feature. The various writable and re-writable forms of CD and DVD are portable storage media supported by the vast majority of computers as of 2008. Archiving software can achieve a similar result by creating encrypted ZIP or RAR files.[72][73]. These flash drives retain their memory after being submerged in water, and even through a machine wash. Leaving such a flash drive out to dry completely before allowing current to run through it has been known to result in a working drive with no future problems. Serial access requires far fewer electrical connections for the memory chips than does parallel access, which has simplified the manufacture of multi-gigabyte drives. [citation needed]. Several manufacturers are now offering warranties of 5 years or more. The applications of current data tape cartridges hardly overlap those of flash drives: on tape, cost per gigabyte is very low for large volumes, but the individual drives and media are expensive. However, as with any flash storage, data loss from bit leaking due to prolonged lack of electrical power and the possibility of spontaneous controller failure due to poor manufacturing could make it unsuitable for long-term archival of data. Second generation flash drives have claimed to read at up to 30MB/s and write at about half that rate, which was about 20 times faster than the theoretical transfer rate achievable by the previous model, USB1.1, which is limited to 12Mbit/s (1.5MB/s) with accounted overhead. By reducing the probability of the device's premature failure, flash memory devices can now be considered for use where a magnetic disk would normally have been required. In appearance similar to a USB flash drive, a USB killer is a circuit that charges up capacitors to a high voltage using the power supply pins of a USB port then discharges high voltage pulses onto the data pins. [3][16] A Singaporean company named Trek 2000 International is the first company known to have sold a USB flash drive, and has also maintained that it is the original inventor of the device. Some USB flash drives use USB plug that does not protect the contacts, with the possibility of plugging it into the USB port in the wrong orientation, if the connector type is not symmetrical. [53] Forensic software is required not to alter, in any way, the information stored on the computer being examined. - Premium USB", "Patent Expires for Flash Memory Sticks, Invented by a Chinese Company-Jiemian Global", "Singapore firm wins patent on thumb drive", "4 Optical Drives through Port Multiplier", "Reducing Seek Overhead with Application-Directed Prefetching", "Want a laptop with USB 3.0? Many companies make small solid-state digital audio players, essentially producing flash drives with sound output and a simple user interface. This is simple for the end-user, and more likely to be done. For example, write protection makes a device suitable for repairing virus-contaminated host computers without the risk of infecting a USB flash drive itself. A company specializing in recovering lost data from computer drives managed to recover all the data on the drive. Universal Disk Format (UDF) version 1.50 and above has facilities to support rewritable discs like sparing tables and virtual allocation tables, spreading usage over the entire surface of a disc and maximising life, but many older operating systems do not support this format. This feature, which gradually became less common, consists of a switch on the housing of the drive itself, that prevents the host computer from writing or modifying data on the drive. Desired mode of operation (either regular USB mass storage device or of floppy drive emulation) is made selectable by a sliding switch on the device's housing. On April 5, 1999, Amir Ban, Dov Moran, and Oron Ogdan of M-Systems, an Israeli company, filed a patent application entitled "Architecture for a Universal Serial Bus-Based PC Flash Disk". Many drives made today do not support Mount Rainier, and many older operating systems such as Windows XP and below, and Linux kernels older than 2.6.2, do not support it (later versions do). Such devices may carry the USB logo only if sold with a separate extension cable. Optical storage devices are among the cheapest methods of mass data storage after the hard drive. As highly portable media, USB flash drives are easily lost or stolen. In terms of overall mass, hard drives are usually larger and heavier than flash drives; however, hard disks sometimes weigh less per unit of storage. Also, standard FAT maintenance utilities (e.g., ScanDisk) can be used to repair or retrieve corrupted data. The drive is small and convenient, and more likely to be carried off-site for safety. These are used to control access to a sensitive system by containing encryption keys or, more commonly, communicating with security software on the target machine. [25], In January 2013, tech company Kingston, released a flash drive with 1TB of storage. As a consequence, some manufacturers have added encryption hardware to their drives, although software encryption systems which can be used in conjunction with any mass storage medium will achieve the same result. micro-USB and USB-C ports). The ubiquity of SD cards is such that, circa 2011, due to economies of scale, their price is now less than an equivalent-capacity USB flash drive, even with the added cost of a USB SD card reader. Although inexpensive card readers are available that read many common formats, this results in two pieces of portable equipment (card plus reader) rather than one. Floppy disks may be the method of choice for transferring data to and from very old computers without USB or booting from floppy disks, and so they are sometimes used to change the firmware on, for example, BIOS chips. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. As of March 2016[update], flash drives with anywhere from 8 to 256 gigabytes (GB[4]) were frequently sold, while 512GB and 1terabyte (TB[5]) units were less frequent. [27] The first USB3.1 type-C flash drives, with read/write speeds of around 530MB/s, were announced in March 2015. Devices with removable storage like older Yamaha music keyboards are also dependent on floppy disks, which require computers to process them. SD cards serve as a good alternative to USB drives since they can be inserted flush. The U3 company works with drive makers (parent company SanDisk as well as others) to deliver custom versions of applications designed for Microsoft Windows from a special flash drive; U3-compatible devices are designed to autoload a menu when plugged into a computer running Windows. The system is designed so the target machine will not operate except when the flash drive device is plugged into it. [76][unreliable source? [12][13], Multiple individuals have staked a claim to being the inventor of the USB flash drive. The use of biometrics and encryption is becoming the norm with the need for increased security for data; on-the-fly encryption systems are particularly useful in this regard, as they can transparently encrypt large amounts of data. A lesser setback for flash drives is that they have only one tenth the capacity of hard drives manufactured around their time of distribution. ][77] This should be a consideration when using a flash drive to run application software or an operating system. These properties make them suitable for transporting data from place to place and keeping the data readily at hand. Most drives can be attached to keychains or lanyards. Many low-cost MP3 players simply add extra software and a battery to a standard flash memory control microprocessor so it can also serve as a music playback decoder. The flash drives present a simple block-structured logical unit to the host operating system, hiding the individual complex implementation details of the various underlying flash memory devices. Others have a swivel arrangement so that the connector can be protected without removing anything. Flash drives have also experienced an exponential growth in their storage capacity over time (following the Moore's Law growth curve).

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