A flash drive is a portable media device meant to act as a type of smaller hard-drive disk to transfer data between two places. By using the USB feature, flash drives plug into your computer easily. If your computer does not have a USB port, you can purchase a memory card reader to use instead. Since USB is the standard, this means that you can transfer data between most computers. Flash drives come in sizes from 24 MB up to 50+ GB. Most retail stores sell units ranging from 256 MB to two GB. Larger sizes can be purchased online.

Flash drives come in all shapes and sizes, but they are mostly small enough to fit inside your pocket or wallet. They are meant to be portable, and you can purchase cases as well as lanyards to wear them on. Being compact, data stored on the unit is safer than most portable media devices twice their size. Most flash drives will work between different operating systems, such as Windows and Linux.

These drives are made up of a small circuit board encased by plastic in most cases. The plastic protects the board from harm and makes it easy to carry in your pocket or purse. Most drives are now set-up to run the USB 2.0 standard, but they will still work on computers using less than that but may slow down the computer considerably. Some flash drives, such as SanDisk units, come with software to facilitate the movement of data between the drive and the computer in question.

The most common uses of a flash drive include:

Data transportation between two computers

This is the most common way a flash drive is used. It involves placing data on the drive to use on another computer. This is the easiest way to get data from point A to point B.

Computer repair and system administration

Since you can store data and software on a flash drive, if your computer acts up, you can use anti-virus and spy ware programs to eliminate the threat from your machine by using it as a boot device. Many computer technicians are using flash drives as an alternative to carrying a heavy case of CDs to work on machines. This will not work on all computers, most notably older ones, but it works well enough that most problems can be combated now by booting from a flash drive.

Application uses

Many flash drives are employing an API to flash function called U3. This allows flash drives to run programs, such as Firefox and AIM on computers that do not have it installed. You boot a micro-version of the program from the flash drive and run it like you would if it was installed. Many companies have jumped on board and began to produce micro-versions of their software for this use, such as Trillian, Opera and OpenOffice.

Audio and video player

By storing audio and videos on the flash drive, you can run them like you run a CD or DVD on any computer. Most machines are now capable of auto-running the flash drive in such a way. Some mp3 players will now allow you to connect a flash drive much like a memory card to play even more music through the unit itself.