What do many buyers pay attention to when they want to buy a flash drive? Some take into account the modern and at the same time unusual design of the storage medium. Others, wanting to save money, try to find a large amount of memory at a lower price, while losing speed characteristics. And only a few understand that the most important thing is not the size of a flash drive or its design, but the technical characteristics that are necessary for fast data transfer.
Thanks to this article, you can learn more about flash drives: what is a file system, what cluster size to choose when formatting a flash drive, how you can determine its speed capabilities and real volume. Also, thanks to the knowledge gained, you will learn how to choose the right flash drive, paying attention to what some overlook.
In addition to all of the above, this one will show you how to test the speed capabilities of your flash drive yourself. Unfortunately, such dataManufacturers do not display on the case of a flash drive or on the box, so sometimes you have to find out for yourself.
A few words about flash drives
One of the first flash drives was created in 2000 by the Israeli company M-Systems. A year earlier, in April, a patent for a flash drive was signed, and a year later, its first copy was presented. The flash drive was given the name DiskOnKey, and it was sold under the logo of the American company IBM.
In the same year, Trek Technology provided a copy of the first flash drive, only under a different name - ThumbDrive, which had its own size of 8 MB. Trek Technology was able to take pride of place in the global market, but lost many lawsuits that were filed by companies in other countries.
Producers
On the Internet, you can find many different manufacturers of storage media, and each of them has its own fans. More popular brands are Adata and Kingston. They have earned their trust thanks to high-quality and high-speed products. In addition, Adata and Kingston care about their fans. How?
For example, Adata constantly updates information regarding the technical capabilities of high-speed flash drives. Thanks to this, every day you can watch the latest innovations that appear on the Internet.
As for Kingston, it also makes sure that everyone can check the speed of copying and reading any flash card that he has purchased. This information is currentlyis in PDF format in the public domain, so anyone can use it.
Besides Adata and Kingston, there are other manufacturers that are also trustworthy. These include Power, Transcend, Sandisk, Apacer and others. Undoubtedly, each of them has its own advantages, but you should not choose a device based solely on the brand. Every company that produces USB flash drives also has bad products, or, to put it mildly, of lesser quality. Therefore, always first pay attention to the technical characteristics and only then to the beautiful design.
Flash drive size
Often, information about the volume of a flash drive can be found either on the case itself or on the packaging. But what size flash drive should you choose? Now many have the opinion that the more the better. However, this information is erroneous. Why? The first reason is the waste of money. You buy a flash drive, for example, 64 GB (Gigabytes), and you will use less than half. Therefore, decide in advance what the maximum size of the flash drive you need.
The second reason is the loss of power. If you are chasing a large volume and at the same time low cost, then keep in mind that the speed of copying information can be very low. Even if you use the entire volume of the flash drive, in order to download large files, you will spend a lot of time. It is better then to buy an external hard drive, which will please you with a large volume (1 Terabyte) and a relatively low price.
But if you need a flash drive,then note that they come in the following categories:
- 4-16 GB - small, cheap.
- 16-64 GB - quality and at the best price.
- from 128 GB - for urgent needs and at a high price.
As already mentioned, the size of the flash drive must correspond to the specific task. Do not chase large volumes, as you will lose a lot of money and buy low-quality goods.
Speed capabilities
As a rule, manufacturers indicate only the amount of built-in memory on the case or packaging. Additional information must be checked independently. But, fortunately, there are several conscientious manufacturers who still indicate the technical parameters.
If you have already bought a flash drive and it does not indicate the speed of reading and copying information, then you can check it yourself using special software Software, which stores the test results of the latest models of different brands.
Useful little things
In order to promote their products and reach the next level in the global market, many flash drive manufacturers are adding additional features to their devices. Thanks to this marketing move, many little-known brands were able not only to successfully promote their inventions, but also to gain a lot of fans. What are these additional features?
One of the most popular new products- this is biometrics, in other words, equipping with a fingerprint scanner. This feature is only needed if you are working with very sensitive documents that require additional protection. A flash drive with such a scanner will cost much more than conventional drives.
Another equally useful option is data compression. This feature increases the density of data storage so as not to take up free space. But do not think that all these additional software do not affect the performance of the flash drive.
Flash drive housing
Another factor to consider when choosing a flash drive is the case. What is it for? As a rule, many flash drives become unusable due to external damage. Why is this happening? To better understand this, let's take a closer look at what types of cases are:
- Open connector. This type of case is more vulnerable to physical damage, since nothing protects the contact plates. Usually these flash drives are very cheap and can fail quickly.
- Removable cap. Perhaps this is one of the most popular types of connector. Caps can be either plastic or rubber. The use of rubber will provide higher protection against moisture and dust, while plastic will cope better with physical damage.
- Bracket. This design is mounted on the case itself and can be rotated in different directions, thereby closing the contact plates. It has a rather weak level of protection against external factors and often breaks due to poorcommit.
As you probably noticed, the best type of case is a removable cap. This design can be made of plastic, rubber or metal. Which one to give preference, everyone decides for himself.
A variety of clusters
Probably, everyone at least once faced with the process of formatting flash drives. And this process does not cause difficulties, because it is fully automated. But before running it, the system allows the user to make a choice in the size of the cluster.
Clusters are a kind of boxes in which the necessary information is added. When formatting flash drives, the size of the envy cluster depends on the selected file system. Each system has its own maximum and minimum size. For example, the cluster size when formatting a flash drive in fat32 can be from 1024 to 32 KB.
What to consider when choosing a cluster
First of all, the size of the cluster depends on the size of the files that you will copy to the flash drive. If they are insignificant in volume (text documents, pictures, etc.), then cells of 16 Kb or less can be distributed. Accordingly, if you need to transfer large files (movies, games, music, etc.) to a flash drive, then it is better to choose the maximum cluster size.
Why is it necessary to constantly select a cluster? The speed of copying information will depend on the correctly set size. When you choose the cluster size,then the file that will be placed in it will take up all the remaining space.
For example, you have selected clusters of 16 KB, and file sizes of 6 KB. Each cluster can contain only one file, and therefore, when copying information, the free space (in this case, 10 Kb) is not filled with another file, but remains empty. For this reason, the copy speed will be significantly slower than if you select appropriately sized clusters.
Selection Tips
What do you now think is the most important thing to look for when buying flash drives? For cost or design? Or maybe on the speed of reading information, the volume and type of case? Of course, the design of a flash drive and its cost are also important, but first it is better to take a closer look at the technical characteristics, and only then choose a good design and an appropriate cost.
Also, if finances allow you, you can take a closer look at useful software that can increase the actual size of a flash drive or provide more reliable protection. But do not forget that such functions can greatly affect the speed of its action.
Conclusion
Thanks to this article, you got acquainted with various types of flash drives, learned how to correctly determine the appropriate cluster based on the size of the flash drive distribution unit, learned that such modern devices help us easily transfer a large amount of information in a small device.
Also, you may have figured out what size flash drive you need, what clusters are and what kind of case is (open connector, removablecap and brace). Now you can safely go to the store and purchase a useful device.
