Everything you Need to Know About Flash Drives
Memory sticks are available in many different dimensions and sizes. Differing capacity sticks are required for different data storage applications. Tens of Millions of Memory sticks are made worldwide each year, with many being used for unsuitable applications.
Spending a few moments to assess your storage needs before making the wrong purchase will let you to make an informed decision and as a result you will end up with a far superior device that will work for you.
Memory Card Formats
There are several formats that are the most used by the majority of large manufacturers. The most widely used are SD cards, Micro and Mini SD cards, USB Flash drives, and Compact Flash drives.
The 2 most important issues when choosing ideal data storage, are the memory capacity of the device and the data transfer speed. Memory storage technology is fast moving leading to continual growth of storage capacity & an increase in data transfer speed.
The bigger and quicker the memory card, the more it usually costs. With the recent exponential surge in the use of tablets for HD videos and gaming, portable data storage of large amounts of data is now ever more necessary.
Data Storage
At present, in January 2014, memory sticks and cards are manufactured up to 256GB and memory capacity is on course to hit 2TB by 2020. Sticks and cards are ever more reliable, giving the user more security and confidence than was accepted a little while ago.
The majority of cards are hot swappable which means that you can remove them from devices without you being required to to eject them. Flash storage drives are also compatible with both Microsoft and Apple, so you can easily transfer your data onto your Mac or PC for later use.
Compact Flash storage cards
Professional grade cameras usually provide several card slots and will take Compact Flash memory (usually the preference for commercial photographers) and SDXC memory as well. For photographers, often they only have one chance to capture a moment, so they be certain that the photographs they take are going to be stored securely.
Compact Flash cards are one of the most dependable data cards and the most trusted. Most wedding photographers choose several lesser size Compact Flash memory cards during a wedding shoot instead of storing all of their photos onto a single high capacity data card.
This provides added protection against failure because if the worst were to happen, if a data failure happens, they will only lose one segment of their data, rather than all of it.
Despite the high level of reliability of data storage, it is a sensible precaution to preserve your data by saving it in this way so as to avoid any unforeseen disasters. Due to their small size, flash memory cards and USB sticks are a very convenient method of storing enormous volumes of data for either portability or security.
These small cards and sticks can be easily carried in a wallet, pocket or purse, or hidden away discreetly to secure your intellectual property. Portable flash memory has two forms, USB driven and a variety of card drives which each require either the right card slot or a multi card reader which is connected to a PC or Mac via USB.
The electronic devices, cameras or gaming portals you are looking to buy, or already own will normally dictate which cards you will require.
If you are only planning to store documents from your Mac or PC then a USB flash drive would be your preferred choice. With the expense of flash drives decreasing, this is the ideal moment to upgrade with new large capacity sticks and cards to back up your most valuable information.