Questions about CFgear's custom bulk flash drives

 

Q. What the heck is this new fandangled thing folks call a Flash Drive?

 

A. If you’re reading this answer, then congratulations! You made ‘er to the wonderful world of digital file transfer and storage. So you wanna know what that little bugger with the stem on the end does, eh? The best way to think of it is like an eency weency “honey I shrunk the” hard drive. Or better yet, a “we’ve come a heck of a long ways since the floppy disk” storage device.

 

The difference between the hard drive in your computer and a flash drive is there’s no moving parts inside a flash drive. It uses “flash memory” in fact to read/write digital content. Thus the name “flash”. In the example of the ol’ floppy storage, the difference is that with a flash drive, you can save, delete, store, transfer files as you please, as much as ya want (the average lifespan of a flash drive is about 10 years…so as much as you want within an average of 10 years!)

 

A floppy, or even a Compact Disc doesn’t enable the “recycling” of digital storage to the degree a flash drive does. Plus the old floppy and/or Compact Discs just don’t look quite as good hanging off your key chain. So in review, a flash drive is used to mobilize digital content…to allow you to save files and take them with you…either to transfer to another computer or merely to feel good about having your entire day’s work in the pocket of your new denim jeans. Wow! Ya learn something everyday, huh?!

 

Q. Ok. Ok. I kinda get the flash drive thingymabobber. But how do I make it “work”?

 

A. Well, it’s really rather simple. Every computer manufactured these days comes standard with a usb port…a place to plug external/peripheral computer devices such as your printer, mouse, or in this case your flash drive into. Yep. That little slot (generally on the side of your laptop or right smack dab on the front of your PC tower is the place to plug that fandangled flash drive in.

 

But before you plug in, there’s a little secret we want to share with ya. Most all flash drives or devices engineered to fit in the usb port have a usb cable symbol on the side that needs to face up when pluggin’in to the port. Actually, what will happen if you plug it in incorrectly is either the computer will not recognize the flash drive device or the drive will not plug in to the usb port. So if that occurs, simply flip the drive over and insert it into the usb port.

 

In the event your drive still doesn’t fit in the usb port and/or doesn’t “populate” (fancy word for “your computer recognizes it”), then it’s obvious you didn’t invest in a CFgear flash drive. Sorry. In the event, that the drive does “populate” (don’t ya love that word?!), your computer (depending on the O/S -  Windows, Vista, Macintosh) should alert you that new hardware has been found (Hopefully it says something to the effect of that new hardware being a usb data storage device. If it says it has found a screwdriver or hammer or something like that, then once again, you should’ve invested in a CFgear flash drive).

 

The easiest and most proven way to access the drive and get ready to transfer files to the flash drive is to go to “My computer”. Once in “My Computer” you should see either an F: or G: drive icon. You can then click on that icon and a new window should appear on your screen. You can now drag and drop any content you want from your computer to that flash drive. The opposite is true should you want to transfer files from your flash drive to a computer. Simply open up the drive…drag and drop the files from your flash drive window to wherever you wish on your computer.

 

Q. So how much info can I put on this thing you’re now starting to fall in love with?

 

A. You can store as much digital content on your flash drive as the storage capacity of your NAND Flash memory chip is engineered to hold. If you don’t know the storage capacity of your drive, you can discover this by right clicking the F: drive (other “flash drive” icon) in you’re My Computer window. Then scroll down to Properties. In Properties you will see both how large the total capacity is as well as how much capacity is remaining (assuming you’ve already had fun loading some content on the drive).

 

Just a bit o’ trivia for ya, the first flash drive was a mere 8MB. Since that time, it’s hard to come by much of anything smaller than a 16MB with sizes moving up beyond 32GB. Increments of storage size double. So you move from 8MB to 16MB to 32MB to 64MB…you get the pattern…yes…it’s Math…it’s fun fun!

 

And since we’re on the subject of numbers, there’s 1000MB in 1 Gigabyte (GB). The kids refer to it as a “Gig”. Another useless bit of info we know is that the true geeks are already talking “Terabyte”, which is equal to 1000GB. Yowsers!! That’s a lot of storage space. Enough to park your 1968 Datsun in for sure.

 

Q. So I’m sold on these flash drive dohickies, but will just any ol’ computer accept them?

 

A. Flash drives are engineered per USB standards. And USB actually stands for “Universal Serial Bus” so we sure as heck hope that by engineering a product such as a flash drive around standards for something called “Universal”, the darn flash drives would work in more places than a Visa card.

 

Truth is, flash drives will function on about any modern day (within the last decade) PC or Macintosh. And not to confuse you too much, but depending on the generation of software used on a computer (eg. Windows 2000 vs. Vista), the way in which your computer reads and “populates” (we covered that earlier, remember?) will vary.

 

Q. So what’s so darn special about CFgear’s flash drives?

 

A. Glad you asked. Well, wait now. That was us asking the question. And whaddya know, it’s us answering it too. How’s that for biased? But the straight scope is that NOT all flash drives are the same. Some have recycled NAND Flash memory chips inside them and that can mean up to 40+% failure rate when a user attempts to transfer/store large files on the drive. The lifespan of a recycled chip is also much shorter.

 

The quality of a flash drive can be viewed in much the same way any other product is offered. There’s not so good, good, better, best…and CFgear’s which is the “very bestest”! That’s because CFgear has Triple-Distilled quality controls in place, ensuring that every chip is of the “very bestest” quality both for stability and lifespan.

 

But premium quality and attention to detail don’t come “cheap”. In fact, CFgear NEVER proclaims to be the “cheapest.” If price is your main focus, void of any concern for quality, chances are CFgear is not a good fit for your project.

 




About CFgear

 

Since 2006, CFgear.com has provided a premium assortment of flash drive hardware products online. With a most recent focus on building custom solutions, CFgear blends sophisticated preload software with premium flash drive hardware to produce brilliant, precise marketing tools for the business and education sectors.

 

Contact us at consumeraffairs@cfgear.com