A USB drive, which may also be called a pen drive, a key-chain drive or a flash drive, is basically a plug and play flash storage device. In lay man's terms it is a removable storage device or a portable storage device that can be accommodated in one's palm. A USB drive is the new age replacement for floppy drives, zip drives and CD's. You can buy a 16GB USB drive for a nominal price these days. When a USB drive is plugged into a computer through the USB port the operating system identifies the removable storage device and assigns it a drive letter.

A USB device doesn't need rebooting of the computer after it is attached. It doesn't even require a separate power supply. The required power is taken from the USB port itself and doesn't require any batteries. So when you buy a 16 GB USB drive you don't have to go on an endless quest for procuring its batteries because it doesn't have any! Depending on the make of the USB drive may have various add on features like password protected access so on and so forth.

USB drives with memory capacities as high as 65 GB without compromising on its compactness are also available. A USB drive's memory is non-volatile, meaning, it can retain data even after being disconnected from the system.  This makes USB drives an effective media of data transfer between computer systems. One may even buy 16GB USB drives for the sake of backing up important files on the USB drive for the purpose of system revival in case of a virus attack. The USB drives designed to work with USB port 2.0 give better performance with USB port 2.0 than with the older ports.

 Buy 32gb compact flash at our 32gb cf card store. Our sd card website contains some exciting offers and great deals on all types and sizes of SD Cards offered by the top manufacturers and brands. We constantly try to update our deals and would advise you and your friends to check regularly for the latest sd card deals.