Flash drives use little power, have no fragile moving parts, and for most capacities are small and light. Software tools exist to check and detect fake USB drives,[48][49] and in some cases it is possible to repair these devices to remove the false capacity information and use its real storage limit.[50]. [27] The first USB3.1 type-C flash drives, with read/write speeds of around 530MB/s, were announced in March 2015. Some LCD monitors for consumer HDTV viewing have a dedicated USB port through which music and video files can also be played without use of a personal computer. 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. Some USB flash drives have this 'wear leveling' feature built into the software controller to prolong device life, while others do not, so it is not necessarily helpful to install one of these file systems.[43]. 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. USB plug provides a physical interface to the host computer. Serial access requires far fewer electrical connections for the memory chips than does parallel access, which has simplified the manufacture of multi-gigabyte drives. Some computers can boot up from flash drives. To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems (such as Linux in Live USB)[78] or commonplace applications (such as Mozilla Firefox) designed to run from flash drives. [53] Forensic software is required not to alter, in any way, the information stored on the computer being examined. SD cards serve as a good alternative to USB drives since they can be inserted flush. Media have a very high capacity and very fast transfer speeds, but store data sequentially and are very slow for random access of data. in ignorance of their technology, USB drives' failure is more likely to be sudden: while rotating drives can fail instantaneously, they more frequently give some indication (noises, slowness) that they are about to fail, often with enough advance warning that data can be removed before total failure. Some devices level the usage by auto-shifting activity to underused sections of memory. 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. 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. As of 2013, single-packaged devices with capacities of 1TB are readily available,[59] and devices with 16GB capacity are very economical. Transcend is the only manufacturer of USB flash drives containing such feature. 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. Most flash drives use a standard type-A USB connection allowing connection with a port on a personal computer, but drives for other interfaces also exist (e.g. 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. USB drives give little or no advance warning of failure. The drive is small and convenient, and more likely to be carried off-site for safety. Originally, this potential failure mode limited the use of "live USB" system to special-purpose applications or temporary tasks, such as: As of 2011[update], newer flash memory designs have much higher estimated lifetimes. An additional advantage of memory cards is that many consumer devices (e.g., digital cameras, portable music players) cannot make use of USB flash drives (even if the device has a USB port), whereas the memory cards used by the devices can be read by PCs with a card reader. [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. In particular, Mac OS X 10.7 is distributed only online, through the Mac App Store, or on flash drives; for a MacBook Air with Boot Camp and no external optical drive, a flash drive can be used to run installation of Windows or Linux. [citation needed] Typically, one of these ICs provides an interface between the USB connector and the onboard memory, while the other is the flash memory. Flash drives also have disadvantages. SanDisk has also introduced a new technology to allow controlled storage and usage of copyrighted materials on flash drives, primarily for use by students. [46], Regardless of the endurance of the memory itself, the USB connector hardware is specified to withstand only around 1,500 insert-removal cycles. 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. [14][3] The patent was subsequently granted on November 14, 2000 and these individuals have often been recognized as the inventors of the USB flash drive. 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. 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. [80][81] Since many flash drives stick out from computers, they are likely to be bumped repeatedly and may break at the stress point. Flash drives are often measured by the rate at which they transfer data. They are slower than their flash-based counterparts. [56][57], Most current PC firmware permits booting from a USB drive, allowing the launch of an operating system from a bootable flash drive. Some value-added resellers are now using a flash drive as part of small-business turnkey solutions (e.g., point-of-sale systems). 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". Several manufacturers are now offering warranties of 5 years or more. As of mid-2005[update],[needs update] this was an expensive alternative to standard password protection offered on many new USB flash storage devices. 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). [82], The New York-based Human Rights Foundation collaborated with Forum 280 and USB Memory Direct to launch the "Flash Drives for Freedom" program. 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. For example, write protection makes a device suitable for repairing virus-contaminated host computers without the risk of infecting a USB flash drive itself. COFEE is a set of applications designed to search for and extract digital evidence on computers confiscated from suspects. Flash drives also store data densely compared to many removable media. (Part II)", "What is the Life Cycle of a USB Flash Drive? The drive is used as a backup medium: at the close of business each night, the drive is inserted, and a database backup is saved to the drive. Particularly with the advent of USB, external hard disks have become widely available and inexpensive. A lesser setback for flash drives is that they have only one tenth the capacity of hard drives manufactured around their time of distribution. 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. Also, standard FAT maintenance utilities (e.g., ScanDisk) can be used to repair or retrieve corrupted data. 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. They may be given away for free, sold at less than wholesale price, or included as a bonus with another purchased product. Some manufacturers deploy physical authentication tokens in the form of a flash drive. 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. They are easy to lose and facilitate unauthorized backups. [6][7] As of 2018, 2TB flash drives were the largest available in terms of storage capacity. Specially manufactured flash drives are available that have a tough rubber or metal casing designed to be waterproof and virtually "unbreakable". However, any USB flash drive can be used in this arcade game. Usually, such drives will be custom-stamped with a company's logo, as a form of advertising. [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. Although the combined cost of a mini-reader and a memory card is usually slightly higher than a USB flash drive of comparable capacity, the reader + card solution offers additional flexibility of use, and virtually "unlimited" capacity. 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. Such warranties should make the device more attractive for more applications. Flash drives are cheaper than many other backup systems. Individuals also store medical information on flash drives for emergencies and disaster preparation. 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. Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. The few, the proud", "Kingston unveils 1 terabyte flash drive", "PK: the World's First USB Kit with 3.1 technology", "The world's biggest flash drive can store more than 160 HD movies", "SanDisk shows off the world's smallest 1TB USB-C flash drive at CES", "PKparis unveils world's smallest Android flash drive | Android Atlas - CNET Reviews", PNY USB Flash Drive CES 2006 LetsGoDigital, BlueTrek Bizz an expandable USB and a Bluetooth headset in one, Frequently Asked Questions About USB Flash Drives, "World's smallest 128GB USB 3.0 drive: PKParis K'1 picks a fight with SanDisk Ultra Fit", "Guide: The 20 Best Small USB Flash Drives", "USB 2.0 Specification Engineering Change Notice (ECN) #1: Mini-B connector", Bizarre USB flash drives from the Far East, "Flash Memory Fragmentation Myths and Facts", "TN-29-42: Wear-Leveling Techniques in NAND Flash Devices", "Kingston's Flash Memory Guide - Kingston Technology", "How Long Does a USB Flash Drive Last? Estimation of flash memory endurance is a challenging subject that depends on the SLC/MLC/TLC memory type, size of the flash memory chips, and actual usage pattern. Flash drives can be defragmented. [69] All data on the other removable storage devices tested, using optical or magnetic technologies, were destroyed. 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. 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 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. Such cables are USB-compatible but do not conform to the USB standard.[38][39]. For consecutive sector writes and reads (for example, from an unfragmented file), most hard drives can provide a much higher sustained data rate than current NAND flash memory, though mechanical latencies seriously impact hard drive performance. 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. Flash drives are used to carry applications that run on the host computer without requiring installation. A minority of flash drives support biometric fingerprinting to confirm the user's identity. The ubiquity of the FAT32 file system allows the drive to be accessed on virtually any host device with USB support. [76][unreliable source? Additionally, they are less vulnerable to electromagnetic interference than floppy disks, and are unharmed by surface scratches (unlike CDs). The most common use of flash drives is to transport and store personal files, such as documents, pictures and videos. Most drives can be attached to keychains or lanyards. Original flash memory designs had very limited estimated lifetimes. 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. The failure mechanism for flash memory cells is analogous to a metal fatigue mode; the device fails by refusing to write new data to specific cells that have been subject to many read-write cycles over the device's lifetime. This required considerable computer support, and PC-based EEPROM flash memory systems often carried their own dedicated microprocessor system. Capacities exceeding 256GB were available on the market as early as 2009. 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. In either case, the drive is removed at night and taken offsite. 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. Ceedo is an alternative product, with the key difference that it does not require Windows applications to be modified in order for them to be carried and run on the drive. IEEE 1667 is an attempt to create a generic authentication platform for USB drives. When combining streaming reads and writes the speed of another drive, that could read at 92MB/s and write at 70MB/s, was 8MB/s. 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. 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. The capacity is often large enough for several backup images of critical data. Similarly, other application virtualization solutions and portable application creators, such as VMware ThinApp (for Windows) or RUNZ (for Linux) can be used to run software from a flash drive without installation. In Windows Vista and later versions, ReadyBoost feature allows flash drives (from 4GB in case of Windows Vista) to augment operating system memory.[60]. 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. 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). [63] Subsequently, artists including Nine Inch Nails and Kylie Minogue[64] have released music and promotional material on USB flash drives. The operating system can use any file system or block addressing scheme. Many of the smallest players are powered by a permanently fitted rechargeable battery, charged from the USB interface. 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. It is supported in Windows 7 and Windows Vista (Service Pack 2 with a hotfix).[52]. Data stored on flash drives is impervious to mechanical shock, magnetic fields, scratches and dust. In addition, many home Hi-Fi and car stereo head units are now equipped with a USB port. The USB connector may be protected by a removable cap or by retracting into the body of the drive, although it is not likely to be damaged if unprotected. Some of these players are true USB flash drives as well as music players; others do not support general-purpose data storage. Flash memory cards, e.g., Secure Digital cards, are available in various formats and capacities, and are used by many consumer devices. Other forensic suites run from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, but cannot store data on the media they are run from (although they can write to other attached devices, such as external drives or memory sticks). [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]). When plugged into a computer, they report themselves as being the larger capacity they were sold as, but when data is written to them, either the write fails, the drive freezes up, or it overwrites existing data. This allows a USB flash drive containing media files in a variety of formats to be played directly on devices which support the format. Flash drives are more or less a miniaturized version of this. 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. As a result, a USB flash drive can last from a few days to several hundred years. [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. Unpopulated space provides space to include a second memory chip. 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. USB flash drives usually specify their read and write speeds in megabytes per second (MB/s); read speed is usually faster. 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. USB flash drives with images of dragons, cats or aliens are very popular in Asia. Flash memory uses floating-gate MOSFET transistors as memory cells. 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. [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. The USB plug is usually retractable or fitted with a removable protective cap. 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. 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. Such dual-partition drives are more expensive.[66]. Newer devices are built with USB flash drive support. There is a widespread opinion that defragmenting brings little advantage (as there is no mechanical head that moves from fragment to fragment), and that defragmenting shortens the life of the drive by making many unnecessary writes. Optical storage devices are among the cheapest methods of mass data storage after the hard drive. U3 also provides a software framework for independent software vendors interested in their platform. 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. 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. Therefore, USB flash units can be partitioned just like hard disk drives. 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. Others have a swivel arrangement so that the connector can be protected without removing anything. Most of these players can also be used as a conventional flash drive, for storing files of any type. The small discs are more expensive than the standard size, and do not work in all drives. 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. Some hard drives support alternative and faster interfaces than USB 2.0 (e.g., Thunderbolt, FireWire and eSATA). USB flash drives draw power from the computer via the USB connection. The drives are less fragile mechanically and magnetically than tapes. Devices with removable storage like older Yamaha music keyboards are also dependent on floppy disks, which require computers to process them. The system is designed so the target machine will not operate except when the flash drive device is plugged into it. 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. 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. [67] Autorunning software this way does not work on all computers, and it is normally disabled by security-conscious users. USB drives with USB 2.0 support can store more data and transfer faster than much larger optical disc drives like CD-RW or DVD-RW drives and can be read by many other systems such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, DVD players, automobile entertainment systems, and in a number of handheld devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, though the electronically similar SD card is better suited for those devices, due to their standardized form factor, which allows it to be housed inside a device without protruding. [17] Finally Pua Khein-Seng, a Malaysian engineer, has also been recognized by some as a possible inventor of the device.[18]. [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. [22] File transfer rates vary considerably among devices. Through 2010, the majority of laptop models still contained only USB 2.0. [87] Until 2008, SanDisk manufactured a product called SD Plus, which was a SecureDigital card with a USB connector.[88]. The basis for USB flash drives is flash memory, a type of floating-gate semiconductor memory invented by Fujio Masuoka in the early 1980s. 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. A recent development for the use of a USB Flash Drive as an application carrier is to carry the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) application developed by Microsoft. High speed has become a standard for modern flash drives. [29] In 2018, SanDisk announced a 1TB USB-C flash drive, the smallest of its kind. 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.