-- How do they fit so much information into a single tiny chip? ---
In 1945, a computer was the size of a house. It had about as much storage capacity as a talking greetings card. It took some extremely brainy people to program it and clunked out computations in a few minutes. It ran on valves and needed to be repaired frequently.
I remember when computers used to cost about £200 for a model with a mere 32Kb (that is 32,000 characters) of memory. In 1990, I bought an Acorn Archimedes for £700 with a whole megabyte of storage space. I thought I was never going to use all that up! It has been said that in 1981, Bill Gates's opinion was that no-one would ever need more than 640Kb on a computer! - however, on further investigation it seems that this is just a salacious rumour. (Wired - Did Gates Realy Say 640K is enough for anyone?)
Fast forward a few years and you can now fit a gigabyte of data (that is 1024 Megabytes, or just over a billion bits) - or 2GB if you want to splash out a bit on an updated model - into a
single chip. It can be yours for the laughable sum of £2.50. In 1990, a typical gigabyte of storage cost about £10,000. (USA Today)-- How easy is it to use all this technology? --
Plugged into the USB (Universal Serial Bus) socket - one of those square things that you plug your printer / scanner into on your computer - the USB drive appears on your computer as a separate disc drive - on mine it is drive F. It is highly reliable against data loss (these are much more secure than a floppy disc). Data on these should last for around ten years (that's much more secure than a floppy disk or even your hard drive).
-- How much information can this drive hold? --
If I were to keep writing this review - how long would it take me to fill it? I would need to type around 670,000 pages (in text format) to fill up the drive completely. At a rate of three pages a day, it would take 611 years to fill it up! I'm not going to need that much storage space for text files. (Don't worry - the review won;t be all that long).
However, I could fill it up with images. If you are busy snapping away on a digital camera, you get files that may be around 3MB in size. Therefore, this would store just 333 photographs. There is even less space if you want to store music files, and even less to store movie files. A film lasting 2 hours fits on one DVD - that is a whopping 4.7GB! You could probably get about half an hour of a compressed movie file on to the USB drive.
So if you have really enormous amounts of data to back up, get a recordableDVD drive for your computer. Personally, I don't really use my computer for storing anything bigger than pictures, so I don't have one. Essential data can be backed up quite happily on to my USB drive. However, Kangurumake one which can hold - wait for it - 64GB. It will set you back about £300 though.
-- How secure is it? --
Probably the greatest risk is because the thing is so small that you will (if you are like me) lose it. Apparently you can even put the thing in a washing machine (according to Wikipedia) and, if it is thoroughly dried out, it will work fine. I'm not going to try this theory out, at least not intentionally.
Another disadvantage is that there is no way of write-protecting the information on this model, so I would make sure you have a back up on your computer. It is also easy for a thief to borrow it, write the contents onto any computer and replace the drive - so don't put any personal information on there!
However, the memory is physically very secure. There is a risk of losing memory by simply yanking it out of your USB socket without turning it off properly at first. This is done by clicking on the "Safely Remove Hardware" logo on your toolbar. As long as you remember to do this, it will be perfectly secure for around a decade. (This is for the same reason that it is important to shut your computer down properly when you turn it off - any memory sectors which are being used when you turn it off may become corrupted).
-- How fast can I access my data? --
It is High Speed USB 2.0 compatible - which means that it can be written to and read from at up to 60MB per second (not as fast as your computer's memory) but faster than my hard drive. This may vary, however, from USB drive to USB drive and I have been unable to find the exact figure for this model.
Anyway, it is certainly fast enough not to be noticeable!
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In summary then, this 1GB USB drive is very cheap. It holds shedloads of data and is very reliable. It is scratch resistant unlike DVDs and CD-ROMs and is not affected by magnets (unlike floppy disks). Apparently you can even stick it in your washing machine, though I wouldn't recommend trying it. Just remember to switch it off correctly before removing it from your computer. Don't put confidential, personal information on it (unless you want someone else to use your credit card details) and above all don't lose it!
Very highly recommended.
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