What is a Flash Drive?

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A flash drive is a small, ultra-portable storage device that, unlike a traditional hard drive or optical drive, has no moving parts.

Flash drives connect to computers and other devices via a built-in USB Type-A or USB-C connector, creating a sort of combination of device and USB cable.

Flash drives are often called pen drives, thumb drives, or jump drives. The terms USB drive and solid-state drive (SSD) are also sometimes used, but most often refer to larger, not-so-portable USB-based storage devices like external hard drives.



How to Use a Flash Drive

To use a flash drive, simply plug it into an available USB port on your computer.

On most computers, you will be warned that the flash drive has been inserted and the contents of the drive will be displayed on the screen, just like other drives on your computer are displayed when you browse for files.

You can also use a flash drive with an Android phone or connect one to an iPhone or iPad.

Exactly what happens when you use your flash drive depends on your version of Windows or other operating system and how you've set up your computer.

Available Flash Drive Sizes

Most flash drives have storage capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB. Smaller and larger flash drives are also available, but they are harder to find.

One of the first flash drives was only 8 MB. The largest we know of is a USB 3.0 flash drive with a capacity of 2TB (2048GB) from Kingston.

More About Flash Drives

Flash drives, like hard drives, can be written and rewritten almost indefinitely.

They have completely replaced floppy drives for portable storage, and considering how big and inexpensive they have become, they have almost replaced CDs, DVDs, and BDs for data storage.

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