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How to choose USB flash drive?

How to choose USB flash drive? Johannes Röll Visitors: 1116 ★★★★

 

The amount of memory

The amount of memory is the main criterion when choosing a flash drive, measured in gigabytes (GB).

To choose the right flash drive by volume, you should focus on the types of files that will be written on it:

 

Important: the actual volume of the flash drive is always less than stated. So, the real amount of memory of the device on 2 GB makes 1.86 GB, models on 4 GB - 3.72 GB, and gadget on 1 TB - 931 GB.


There are flash drives, whose actual memory is significantly different from the stated, and thanks to special firmware, the computer "will not notice" this difference. And only when you try to read the data, the actual amount of flash drive memory is detected. For example, a gadget with a nominal memory of 128 or 256 GB actually holds 16 or 32 GB.

Important: 16-64 GB flash drives are characterized by a balanced price-volume ratio. Smaller drives are much cheaper, and the price of models with more memory is close to the cost of portable external drives, the volume of which is much larger.


Speed


The second most important parameter, measured in megabytes per second. There are read speed and write speed.
The higher the read / write speed, the less time it will take to transfer data from the drive to the computer / from the computer to the drive. These parameters are especially important when working with large data sets.

Keep in mind that the read speed is always significantly higher than the write speed. If the information on the flash drive will be updated infrequently, then these parameters are not essential.

On the cheapest flash drives, the read speed is about 10-15 Mb / s, and the write speed is 3-8 Mb / s. This is quite slow, for example, a 4 GB movie will be recorded for about 15 minutes, but is suitable for recording text documents, graphics and audio files.

More modern versions boast a read speed of 20-25 MB / s, and write speed - 10-15 MB / s. Such models are optimal for transferring video files in HD and Full HD.

There are models with a read speed of 30-90 Mbps and a write speed of up to 50 Mbps. This allows you to quickly transfer large amounts of information from the drive to the computer or vice versa. Most often, these are movies in Ultra HD format.

The most modern flash drives read and write speeds even higher - 420 Mbps and 380 Mbps, respectively


Interface

USB Type A connector.

Although the interface is called USB, there are different versions that differ in the maximum possible data transfer rate.

Other connectors

Important: the actual drive speed is always less than the nominal value. For example, the actual speed of a USB 2.0 flash drive usually does not exceed 30 MB / s, and the limits of the USB 3.0 model are 80-150 MB / s.

Johannes Röll
Johannes Röll

Johannes Röll was born 1978 in Brilon,Germany. Graduated RWTH Aachen University. Over the past ten years he worked as Head of the plastic card team, where he was mainly responsible for the development of the distribution, Head of sales Department and Financial Analyst,where he got experience in planning and support sales figures for branches. For the present he works as freelancer

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