Also known as USB flash drive or a jump drive, the pen drive is a backup medium & a portable USB flash memory device, rich in storage facilities and used to quickly transfer audio, video and data files from the hard drive of one computer to another. Because of its small construction, it can easily fit into a pocket, and resemble a small pen or pencil in size and shape and thus named so.
Why Pen Drives?
Easily accessible and common for all, the pen drives make wonderful accessories as computer hardware and have many advantages for their use. Some of the benefits are:
- Pen drives are scratch and dust proof. They can be carried from one place to another and manage every day carrying and abuse.
- All of the important documents can be saved onto a pen drive and taken to another place easily, it is very much portable.
- The pen drives are designed in such a way, that they can fit almost anywhere. They can store a large amount of information, sometimes as large as 4 gigabytes.
- Being small in size, it is easy to fit into business cases, purses or suitcases. Its size also makes it comfortable for carrying from one place to another, sending it via postal mail and also for storing with other computer hardware and software.
- Pen drives, being inexpensive can fit a person's needs and budget. Those having larger storage units around 4 GB may be more expensive than those that may only store around 512 MB.
Pen Drives Working
The working of a pen drive is very simple. The end of the drive, equipped with a USB connector at one end, is inserted into the USB port on a desktop or laptop and is activated. After being in place, it is possible to drop and drag files into the memory of the drive or forward the files to the drive. The process is no more difficult than attaching files to an email or copying files onto a disk.
Pen Drives Varieties
As one can find several different operating systems in common use today, you can get various types of levels of pen drive from different manufacturers, that are configured to work with each system. Some of the popular types of pen drives are:
- Pen Drive Professional, has a high performance flash memory stick (USB 2.0), can read 20 MB/ write 20 MB-the fastest in the world, integrated LED indicator, Boot function and Write /Delete Protection Switch with a weight of 22grams.
- USB Pen Drive Mini, similar to Pen drive professional's technical specifications but comes with a key ring.
- USB Pen Drive Micro features a security function with a shock resistance of 1000 grams (maximum).
- USB Pen Drive Compact is available with 16 MB to 1 GB capacity durable solid-state data retention for at least 10 years with a weight of 20 grams.
- USB Pen Drive HDD -2 GO, has an ultra fast data transfer, compact and mobile light and robust aluminum housing with an approximate weight of 55 grams.
- USB Pen Drive Business Drive, a removable memory drive capable of storing up to 4 GB which is approximately equal to 2000 floppy disks. Does not need batteries or software or cable. Data transfer is 40 times faster which saves large files like movies in seconds.
PEN Drive Ivo Fr, is an integrated solution of MP3 player, USB Memory storage, FM radio and digital audio recorder and has the added advantage of using as a digital voice recorder.
