USB Memory
USB Memory Buying Guide
For some of us it feels like just yesterday we were pulling o...
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USB Memory Buying Guide
For some of us it feels like just yesterday we were pulling out a floppy disc to backup that work document to work on at home. Of course the advent of rewritable CDs and DVD's made floppies extinct very quickly - as did external hard drives gaining popularity. The invention of the flash memory chip would revolutionize the way we see portable storage and usher in a whole new breed of digital cameras that no longer used a floppy but some form of flash memory card for exponentially more storage. At first, the capacities of USB memory sticks were small; 128mb or less - still 128 floppies though! Today, with a little shopping around, it isn't hard to find USB memory sticks exceeding 32Gb in capacity - likely four times larger than your hard drive in that old computer you used to regularly use floppies in! Although they are simple in operation, small in size and inexpensive to buy, there are an increasing number of features finding their way onto our USB memory sticks!
Build - Most USB memory sticks will be either plastic, aluminum or titanium. You usually pay slightly more for the ladder two not only because of material cost but because most aluminum/titanium sticks are also marketed as "rugged" sticks - often with some weather proof abilities too. The implementation of the USB plug itself will vary from being just a straight stick to more compact designs that will swivel or retract to make the stick as small as possible. Of course the colours, shapes and designs of USB memory sticks are endless - literally.
Capacities and Speeds - I won't touch much on storage capacity because this number seems to be doubling at an unprecedented rate. However, at the current time most USB memory sticks on the market range from about 1gb up to 32+gb. Most models won't provide any sort of transfer speed rating unless you are specifically looking at "high speed" or "dual channel" sticks. These are sticks with faster flash chips that are often setup in different configurations to allow for faster transfer rates; this is good if you're using it as virtual RAM or are moving really large files.
Security - For most people, loosing their USB stick full of confidential or important documents could be a huge loss or security risk. For that reason many manufacturers are stepping up to the plate and offering security features on their sticks. Some examples include; password protection, password + encryption protection, fingerprint biometric protection, keypad pin protection (like the locks on your car doors) and I've even seen some go as far as a fully encrypted stick that will destroy the data after so many failed password attempts. If you plan on ever putting data that is the least bit important to you on your USB memory stick then take into account what could happen if you loose it and it is picked up by someone with criminal intent. With the small size of memory sticks, there are uncountable amounts being lost, forgotten and misplaced on an hourly basis.
U3 - U3-enabled flash drives allow you to execute software off the memory stick that will not touch or install itself to the host computer. This allows you to take some of your favourite software, that is U3 enabled, with you on the go. This is great for things like web browsers, Skype, password encryption databases and much more!
It's hard to believe there are more options than meets the eye when it comes to those little USB memory sticks we take for granted! Hopefully by better realizing some of the build materials and security features you can find one that will best suit your line of work!
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Newest USB Memory Reviews
Corsair Flash Padlock 2GB review, Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus 8GB review, Kingston Data Travel...
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Corsair Flash Padlock 2GB review
- Excerpt: The Padlock is the cheapest flash drive here, but it costs £8 per gigabyte. It feels sturdy enough, but there's nowhere to put the cap when detached. It has a keypad security system, allowing you to lock access to the drive via a PIN. The drive was quick to read files, but its average write speeds place it halfway down the group overall. The security system will appeal to some, but Corsair's 4GB Voyager is better value.
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Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus 8GB review
- Excerpt: This small and slender flash drive has an LCD storage capacity meter on the front, so you can see how much free space remains. The meter measures free space in percentages rather than megabytes, so it's hard to work out how much space you have. The drive comes with a 128-bit encryption application. The JumpDrive was the slowest drive in the group when reading small files, and was slower than most of the 8GB drives overall.
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Kingston Data Traveler Ultimate 64GB USB 3.0
- Excerpt: Most of us use a USB pen drive on some level or another, whether it is to keep offline document backups or to move files between work and home machines. Today we are looking at the new Kingston Data Traveler Ultimate 64GB drive which is the first USB 3.0 pen drive we have tested.
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Kingston Technology DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 32GB
- Conclusion: While the Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate is slightly more expensive than its USB 2.0 equivalent, if you’re already splashing out £50 or more on a thumb drive then I don’t
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