USB Flash Drives: Data to Go

By Jonathan Berohn

To give you an idea about my age, the first computer I ever used didn't even have a storage device. It was an old Ohio Scientific machine we used in high school. You typed in your program, ran it, and then lost it when you turned off the machine. The cassette tape drives on the Radio Shack machines were a godsend. And the first floppy disks were revolutionary. These days, with the size of the files we use, many computers don't even come with disk drives any more. Our need for data storage and transfer hasn't gone away, though. The latest advance is the flash drive.

Flash Drive Basics

A flash drive is basically a computer chip that holds memory. In a device about the size of a stick of gum, you can now save hundreds of megabytes of data (depending on how much you want to spend). Flash drives are ideal for taking work home, transferring files to and from school, and sharing projects with clients. Rather than clogging (or overloading) someone's - or more importantly your own - email account with huge files, simply copy them to a flash drive, pop the drive into your pocket, and you're good to go. Since flash drives are USB devices, they require no software installation for use. Yes - you read that right - NO software. They even work on both Macintosh and Windows-based computers.

The Market

The real niche for flash drives is among Zip drive users. With CD R/Ws (drives that let you rewrite over a CD-ROM) taking over the large data storage, Zip's best use is for data transfer. But why carry around a (relatively) big zip disk that requires Zip hardware when you can carry around the chewing gum size flash drive that will work in any computer with a free USB port? The only caveat for flash drives is that they require a powered USB port. That means you can plug them directly into a USB port on your PC, laptop, or monitor, but you will probably run into trouble if you try using something like an unpowered hub or a port on your keyboard. You can buy a 128 MB Flash disk for around $30. Prices go up from there. There are smaller and cheaper flash drives, but you're generally better off springing for at least the 128 MB. That gives you plenty of space to tote around all but the biggest files.