With USB Pen drive or flash drive or USB drive, the task of storing or backing up of your important data has become easier and simpler. This small, handy, portable and easy-to-use storage device can store much more data than a floppy disk and you can just take it in your pocket to anywhere you like and use it. Since, most computers and laptops come with USB (Universal Serial Bus) port, all you need to do is to simply plug the USB connector of the USB drive into it and you can transfer the files between the flash drive and the hard-drive of the PC. Happily, most OS like Windows, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux support pen drives so you will not have problems in connecting these devices and using them.

 

 

USB Pen drive is also called flash drive as it uses flash memory or non-volatile memory. In other words, flash memory does not require power to store or keep the data on the card or chip. This feature accounts for the faster access of data using USB flash drive when compared with floppy drive. Except the memory chip (RAM) which is used as internal memory in PCs, all other data storage devices are slower than USB drives.

 

Since USB flash drives have no movable parts inside them like hard disks and as they have better shock proof capacities, they do not require so much care that other storage devices do. Most flash drives come with removable flash memory and design features that ensure higher durability so they usually last much longer.

 

 

A USB pen drive has a plastic or metallic casing which encloses a PCB (printed circuit board) and a visible part at one end called USB connector. Nowadays, rubber casings are used in flash drives to make the design more durable and better resistant to shocks during handling of the drives. The USB connector which is inserted into the USB port in the PC comes with a cap or sometimes it can be pulled back into the drive itself. These design features make sure that pen drives are safer.

 

 

To read the data stored in a pen drive, first, you need to insert the connector of the drive into the USB port of your laptop or PC. If your PC does not have the USB host controller or you want to use the pen drive with monitor or printer, you will require a USB host which may be built within the devices or available as an external external box. USB host also helps to provide multiple USB access, when it is directly connected with the USB port in your PC.

 

USB flash drives do not require electrical power as long as you connect them with the port in your PC as their buses (cable) are capable of getting power just by connecting with the devices. However, the inbuilt USB flash drives that usually come with monitors or keyboards do need additional power, as they are a bit faster so they need to be inserted into the ports of your PC to get more power to work.

 

 

The old floppy disk drive is becoming obsolete nowadays and other mass data storage devices like CD, Zip drive and USB drive are found to have many advantages over it.

 

Although, a USB pen drive does not have that much storage capacity as a hard disk, it is small, compact, easy-to-use and moreover, very convenient to maintain and highly durable. Those who want to store large amounts of information in a pen drive can get USB drives that come with storage capacity more than 65 GB in recent times.

 

USB flash drives do not require power supply or batteries so they are ideal for use in devices that need to run using low electricity or batteries.

 

When compared with backing up of your data in CD or floppy disk, storage of data using a pen drive is safer and rarely you lose the data due to read or write errors. Their highly durable and moisture-proof design ensures that they can handle the external factors like shock, pressure, moisture and heat better than other storage devices.