A USB flash drive allows you to quickly and easily transfer files between two devices. It is currently one of the most widely used storage media for data transfer. Most often, it varies in capacity - today you can buy a pendrive from 4 GB to 2 TB. What capacity and speed to choose? We'll give you some advice.
Another important parameter when choosing a flash drive is its write and read speed. It is usually specified in MB/s. The write speed indicates the speed at which the USB drive can write, i.e. store data. The read rate tells how much data the pendrive is able to access in one second.
File type
File size
Write time to flash drive
Copy time from flash drive
USB 2.0
USB 3.2 (previously USB 3.1)
USB 2.0
USB 3.2 (previously USB 3.1)
Full HD film
15GB
31min
3.5min
7.5min
1min
100 photos
1GB
2min
15s
65s
9s
50 songs
250MB
31s
4s
20s
3s
USB Flash Drive: Interface and Transfer Speed
A flash drive communicates with a computer or device using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port. It is the interface of a pendrive that determines its maximum theoretical transfer rate (it is given in Mb, 1 MB = 8 Mb). Flash drives are nowadays most often equipped with USB 3.2 Gen 1 connectors (formerly known as USB 3.1 or USB 3.0), which you can recognise very easily - they are distinguished from previous versions by their blue connector.
USB 2.0 - 480 Mb/s
USB 3.2 Gen 1 (3.1 Gen 1) - 5 Gb/s
USB 3.2 Gen 2 (3.1 Gen 2) - 10 Gb/s
OTG Flash Drives
USB flash drives labelled in this way can be connected to mobile phones or tablets that support OTG. OTG Flash drives allow you to transfer data from your smartphone directly to the pendrive, and vice versa. This is a practical accessory to expand the storage space of your connected device.
USB-C Flash Drives
The size of the connector roughly corresponds to the well-known micro USB, but it offers a number of advantages. The most general advantage of a USB-C Flash drive is its symmetrical shape, which allows the connector to always get plugged in on the first try. At the same time, USB-C enables support for all USB standards, including USB 3.2 Gen 2. USB-C can support network connectivity via Ethernet and video transmission using HDMI 2.0.
Lightning Flash Drives
These are USB drives with a Lightning connector, which is primarily designed for Apple devices. This allows you to easily transfer data between your computer and your Apple device.
WiFi Flash Drives / Wireless Flash Drives
Flash drives marked as such allow wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi. The advantage of WiFi pendrives is automatic data downloading and backup. You can use them e.g. for the data from your phone.
Water-resistant flash drives - Water- and shock-resistant for 100% protection of your data wherever you are. You can be sure that your data will remain completely safe.
USB Drive Encryption - Hardware encryption can be activated on these USB flash drives to keep your data secure. When connected to a computer, the data is only accessible after the corresponding key has been entered.
Memory Sticks & Portable USB Drives - additional info
USB flash memory, simply referred to as Flash Drive, is a data medium considered as the successor to floppy disks. Flash memory is not erased when the power is removed from the host device, and often take the form of keychain attachments. As is evident from the title, they connect to computers via USB sockets. They were firstly produced on a commercial scale in 2000 by IBM and Trek Technology.
The first models had a capacity of 8 MB which was five times greater than the floppy disks which were still used at that time. Modern flash drives now have capacities ranging from 512 MB to tens or hundreds of GB (upper limit is constantly increasing) and support USB 2.0. They are made of different materials, including plastic, metal or rubber, and in addition to backing up data, they are compatible with other technologies such as ReadyBoost and U3.
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