USB Flash Drive. It is a USB that flashes and drives. Well, not really.
- A USB drive is removable hardware storage that is typically used for computers, although other systems like gaming consoles and smart-phones also now use USBs.
- ‘USB’ stands for ‘Universal Serial Bus’, and the ‘flash’ in the full name of the USB drive means the USB writes to flash memory.
- The first USB drive was invented in 1999 by the companies Amir Ban, Dov Moan and Orsn Ogdon.
- Since September 2011, some USB drives could hold up to 256 GBs.
- A USB drive has a typical shape of a flatter rectangular prism, but some USBs come in shapes of everyday items like pocket knives and pieces of LEGO.
- USB drives are newer compacted versions of the old floppy disc.
- USB drives use very little power.
- USB drives can fail and not work properly when they have been through to many ‘write and erase’ cycles.
- Microsoft™ named the memory storage and called them USB Flash Drives, in 2005.
- A typical USB drive contains a male A-plug, a USB mass storage controller device, a flash memory chip, test points, a crystal oscillator, a LED light, a write-protect switch, and space for a second flash memory chip.
Bibliography:
USB flash drive 17 November 2012 , Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive>
