We get asked a lot of questions here at CFgear, so many, in fact, that we’re thinking of starting a standalone informational USB flash drive site that addresses any and every kind of flash drive question people throw our way! In this blog post, we’ll cover some very basic USB flash drive facts – or, more specifically, try to answer the question “what is a flash drive?”

If you Google that question, and click on the “definition” link which Google so kindly provides for oft repeated questions, you’ll come across a list of several definitions which the big G has stumbled across in its bot travels around the world wide web:

• A solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. …
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Drive
• A device used to store data, that can withstand more abuse than a hard drive, ranging in capacities from 64MB to 16GB
  en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flash_drive
• Portable storage device that plugs into a USB port.
  www.ccs.k12.in.us/clj/Teams/unified_arts/computer_ed/JAlt/6keyboard/Computer%20Concepts.doc
• The USB flash drive is an ideal device for transferring data between two PC’s using their USB ports. USB flash drives are also known as “pen drives”, “flash drives”, “USB drives”, “USB sticks” and a wide variety of other names. …
• A memory device which can hold files from 154 MB to 8 GB. The memory is contained on the device after the power source is removed from it.
  www.collegesurvive.com/Technology/Basic_Computer_Glossary.aspx
• One of many terms used in popular language for USB flash drive.

Other than the fact that nomenclature for flash drives (or, as Wikipedia insists “USB flash drives”) is varied, I can already see the challenges we’re going to face when we start developing the “USB Flash Drive information website.” For instance, the collegesurvive.com article mentions the top memory for flash drives is 8 GB while wiktionary.org claims 16 GB. The fascinating truth is that the max memory capacity for USB flash drives only continues to rise. Gearlog mentioned Transcend’s release of a 64 GB drive in November of 2008, and Amazon.com now sells a Kingston 64 GB for just under $120 (non customized, of course). There’s a lot of speculation on the web about if/when 128 GB USB flash drives will make their appearance. And after that, it will be 256 GB flash drives …

So stay tuned for our flash drive informational site. It will be a couple months until we’ve got it up, but we hope it will be a one stop resource for those of you who are either freshly learning about these incredible things we eat and breathe as well as for you students who, in an enlightened moment, chose to do that research paper on how USB flash drives work.