DT´s Flash Drive Blog

What exactly makes a USB flash drive superior to a regular hard drive? Are there also downsides?

Flash Drive

vs.

Hard Drive

To me, there’s several factors that make it different from and for the most part better than a traditional hard disk:

1.The writing of data is not by magnetic spinning disks but purely electronic (so flash drive is actually a misnomer because there’s nothing driving). This flash technology in memory sticks makes data storage safer and more durable as outside magnetism doesn’t really effect them.

2.Since there are no moving mechanical parts there’s also no noise.

3.By the same token, there’s no heat generated and hence less power drawn.

4.Flash memory is more shock resistant and withstands extremer pressures and temperatures.

5. Writing and reading of data is faster once utilized with USB 3.0 (480 MB/sec compared to 150 MB/sec of a hard drive).

Pretty compelling points, huh?

But what about possible disadvantages. Well, there’s only three things I can come up with:

1.With magnetic drives, experts and special programs can often recover “lost” or overwritten data whereas when flash drives overwrite the data is erased for good.

2.Memory sticks can usually be rewritten up to 10,000 times while hard disks supposedly can be rewritten up to 50,000 times. However, these numbers are not a set thing and some flash drives may actually last several 100,000 read-write cycles.

3.Flash drives are easier to lose.

One could also add that storage capacities are lower but seeing that memory sticks these days can hold up to 64GB or even 128GB I think that point is becoming obsolete. So in my mind the benefits of USB flash drives pretty much outweigh those of hard disks. But maybe you disagree? If you can think of any other factors – pro or con – please feel free to join the debate.

…on eBay right now:
[wordbay](32 GB flash drive,64 GB flash drive,100 GB hard drive,100 GB festplatte) -(dell,part,flint,no-tax,IBM,evo,playstation,nuovo,ovp,titanium,kingston,disk 2.0,games)[/wordbay]

or
Click here to find more Hard Drives & Flash Drives

First of all, let’s disregard CD-Roms. Nowadays memory sticks far exceed the 700MB limit of CD-Rs so they pose no competition. But what about DVD-Roms? Can you see them being ousted by USB flash drives? Unless you care about watching self-burned movies with your actual TV-DVD-player I would say yes. Think about it:

- They’re smaller and can have more capacity than a normal DVD-R (8/16/32/64/128GB compared to 4,7 GB or 8,5 GB as double layer).

- You can write data a lot quicker (USB 2.0 can transfer 60 MB per second whereas a DVD burner can only do 24 MB/s using a writing speed of 16x).

- You can rewrite data over and over again effortlessly, unlike with DVD-RW. (I don’t know about you but I constantly screwed up my data through rewriting.)

- You can carry them around handily without inflicting any damage (see wear your stick) whereas DVDs usually require a case and some type of bag for safe transport.

- They are far more durable and reliable. How often did you pop in that burned DVD-R to find out that your player has a problem playing it? Could that newly discovered hole or scratch on the surface be to blame? Well, these things can’t happen with USB memory sticks and the data stored on them is not that easy to lose, even when exposed to magnetism.

The only disadvantage I can think of is that 1 flash drive-GB is more expensive than 1 DVD-GB. But does that really bother if it means that GB is good to last? So if you ask me, sooner or later the shiny silver disks will be obsolete. Imagine movies, games and music albums being sold on memory sticks. As a matter of fact there have already been occasions where this has been done (for example, Kylie Minogue’s “X” or Portishead’s “Three”). And why not? It sure saves a lot of space.

To take it one step further, pen drives also score well compared to hard disks. I devoted an article to that here: Flash drives vs. hard drives. As always, feel free to leave your comments.

…on eBay right now:
[wordbay](4.7 GB dvd-r,4 GB flash drive)[/wordbay]

or
Click here to find more DVD-Rs & Flash Drives