Summary
It tkgap tells you how to pick the best USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) for your needs.
Find out what kind of USB port your computer has
What kind of USB you have depends on the port you’re using and the device you’re moving data from. You can check in Device Manager to see which format your computer’s USB ports accept.
1. Go to Device Manager. To get to Device Manager quickly, type its name into the Windows search bar and choose it from the list that comes up.
2. Click on Universal Serial Bus devices twice.
3-This is where you can see what kind of standard your computer’s USB ports accept.
Size of USB Storage
Anywhere from less than 1 GB to over 1 TB can fit on a USB flash drive. There is no “right” size for a flash drive. How much space you need depends on what you want to keep. A 1 GB flash drive might be more than enough space for a few Word or Excel files that you want to take with you from one computer. You might need at least 500 GB, though, if you want to back up all of your files.
Check your phone’s settings to see how much room your media files are taking up. If you want to keep all of your photos and videos, you can do that. It could be anywhere from 1 GB to a few dozen GB. No matter what it is, that’s the least amount of space you need because you might add more things later. You can do the same thing with other types of files, like MP4s. Think about what kinds of things you might want to keep on the same drive.
How Fast USB Transfers
When looking for a flash drive, you should also think about how fast it can transfer data. USB flash drives come in two main types: USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. USB 2.0 is an older standard, and USB 3.0 is a newer one. For USB 2.0, the speed is 480 Mbps, and for USB 3.0, it’s 5,000 Mbps (5 Gbps). In other words, USB 3.0 is about 10 times faster than USB 2.0. There’s also USB 3.2, which can go as fast as 20,000 Mbps (20 Gbps).
When using USB 3.0, a 16 GB file, like a digital film project, will usually move in less than a minute. When using USB 2.0, it will take about five minutes.
What to Know About USB Security
USB flash drives are useful, but they also pose some security risks:
- Because they are small, they might get lost or be missed.
- Because they’re hard to track, some businesses don’t let their employees use them.
- Malware can be sent from one computer to another by them.
The small size of a thumb drive is what makes it portable. However, both software and hardware protection can help stop the spread of malware and illegal access. On-the-fly encryption of portable media is possible with full disk encryption apps. A built-in keyboard is another way to protect the drive. To use it, users must enter a PIN.
If you are only moving a few non-private files from one home computer to another, you might not need these extra features. But you need to protect the device if you’re moving files between computers or storing private or important info. In order to decide whether to buy a USB device with data protection, you should think about how much it would cost you in time, money, and stress if someone got their hands on an unsecured drive.