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Flash memory data storage devices of portable USB drives represent the modern alternative to floppy disks. Small, lightweight and with a high storage capacity, portable USB drives allow the transfer of photos, videos, movies and documents between computers rapidly and efficiently. The advantages of portable USB drives are more numerous over the rest of portable storage devices and here we point to floppy discs and compact discs (CDs) too. All computer operating systems are compatible with the flash cards, from Windows and Mac OS X to Linux. Technically, they consist of a small printed circuit board that has a metal, rubber or plastic cover for protection.

Portable USB drives represent a combination of technologies that led to the design for advantageous data storage environments while achieving a low power consume and maintaining costs low. The usage range of the standard flash memory microprocessor are very extensive and serve for a huge number of electronic equipment that we depend on, from GPS devices and iPods to MP3 players and digital cameras. Moreover, network administrators use portable USB drives to carry around software for recovery, maintenance or troubleshooting computer operations. Such an options is a lot more rewarding than carrying around a pack of CDs with drives.

Presently, the very generous storage space provided by portable USB drivers allows for the carrying around of the various installers necessary for updating and reinstalling the system. Then, the recovery and anti-virus software transfer to infected PCs is also possible, allowing for a partial archiving of data on the host machine. Computer forensics and criminal justice also rely on the use of portable USB drives for a wide number of situations. This was possible through a Microsoft application designed to extract digital evidence.

Portable USB drives make a cheap data carrier solution, and to most users, this piece of hardware has already proved its efficiency. With the right technology, a memory flash card can serve as a backup medium in point-of-sale systems. We should not conclude before mentioning that in terms of reliability, portable USB drives have the highest level of resistance for data transportation. Unlike hard drives, memory flash cards are not fragile and use very little power. All you need to be careful with is not to misplace or leave behind the device that can be easily lost because of the small size.

Besides computer hardware and computer software you might need printer accessories. It is very important to have the right printer accessories, like toner cartridges. If you are interested, you can check the reviews by visiting special website on recycled toner cartridges where you can get brother toner cartridges with the best quality. Picking out the right computer and printer can support your job more effectively.

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Technorati Tags: computer, gadget, Hardware, Technology, USB

Many of us slightly older folk will still remember the humble floppy disk which was the computing industries first real mobile storage media for the mainstream user and when first introduced was an ideal way of transferring data across computers, as long as you did not mind formatting the disk or re-writing it a number of times because of corruption on the first few attempts.

Also the USB 1.0 format was relatively new back in the day, devices that took advantage of the technology were relatively thin on the ground so if you were really lucky you did not have to get involved with larger files that often required spanning across many disks which was even more fraught with frustrastion.

But as computing power grew at a fast pace the size of files seemed to grow exponentially and the floppy drive was simply not up to the job meaning many people were left having to burn very expensive CD’s as burning technology came into play in the nick of time.

USB was making rapid gains fortunately and manufacturers were coming up with many new uses for this very user friendly (operating system permitting) plug and play capability, and the pen drive was borne not a moment to soon in my opinion. Mobile data transfer capacity rocketed upwards from a humble 2mb and it did not seem too long until the capacity of USB pen drives surpassed that of the CD.

The IT support and IT industries where some of the first serious adopters of pen drives primarily due to the fact that system tools could be easily carried on a flash drive and with the larger capacities reduced the need to carry around a number of CD disks used for diagnostics or computer maintenance utilities.

As capacities grew though faster data transfer speeds were needed and this led to the emergence of the second generation of USB …USB 2.0.

There was of course a lot of confusion between USB 2 and Hi speed USB at the time, which could transfer data at an astonishing 480mbps per second but a lot of early adopters were left more than a tad upset as industry often sold devices and PCI cards as USB 2.0 but in reality they were only USB 2.0 compliant and still had a much slower transfer speed.

All of that seems lost in the past know as the standard has emerged and is widely accepted by many as the de facto transfer protocol although the firewire camp would disagree but as technology matures time will tell.

The USB pen drive has really risen to the challenge to take advantage of the USB interface and storage capacities are enormous and far beyond most peoples requirements, What were almost in the beginning icons of your technical prowess have now become a mainstream device and sales are said to exceed 150 million units per year just for pen drives alone. The USB interface is also said to be present in over 6 billion consumers devices and this number is growing at over 30% per annum.

Increases in drive capacities has raised a number of issues across many industry sectors including the data recovery industry, which has had to evolve new USB memory recovery techniques for recovering data from these flash based devices.

Transferring data has become so easy that scant regard has been paid to data backup and equally in the drive to manufacture cheaper products manufacturing standards appear to have slipped resulting in memory controller errors, which of course in turn has led to an increase of lost data.

Some Data recovery companies have of course stepped up the mark and the USB drive recovery industry is now alive and well.

Another issue these devices have highlighted is the need for security as sensitive data (business or personal) can be quickly and easily stolen from the source. Technology has answered the problem and secure pen drives are now available and manufacturing giant Fujitsu has continued its innovation in security with the invention of a smart USB drives which even have the ability to auto erase data on a USB memory device.

As it seems with all technology every development brings us even greater speed and the new USB 3.0 standard is no exception promising data transfer speed 10x greater than current specs which will give us transfer speeds around 5Gbps.

This very fast transfer speed may of course signal the end of the older firewire standard which has been falling behind more recently.

The USB 3.0 standard has now been rolled out and accepted by most mainstream technology players but it may be still be some months before we see any consumer based products or reasonably priced motherboards supporting this latest standard.

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Technorati Tags: computers, Computing, Data Recovery, Technology, USB, USB 3