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Contents 1 Topics from 2005 1.1 Strengths and weaknesses 1.2 Clarification needed 2 Topics from 2006 2.1 POVness 3 Topics from 2007 3.1 Merge from JumpDrive ? 3.2 Transfer speed on virgin units 3.3 Flash_drive redirecting here, probably misleading 3.4 Flash drives don't work on some computers 3.5 XP files not backward compatible to 98 3.6 SD card versus USB flash memory 3.7 Data transfer speed compared to other media 3.8 games on flash drive 3.9 64GB Drive 3.10 "Several companies claim to be the first to have invented the USB Flash Drive" 3.11 Relative Time 3.12 Spam link 3.13 Size of disks 3.14 Data retention

Topics from 2005

Strengths and weaknesses

This section lists several strengths but no weaknesses (apart from saying that like all means of data storage it will eventually fail). Maybe something could be mentioned about the problems of non-compatability (I realise this is discussed elsewhere in the article) and memory corruption which, although I'm not an expert on the subject, I think can on occasion occur.

I added some comments on form factor which has been the biggest gotcha for me with various manufacturers products. Garglebutt / (talk) 01:51, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

how about how it is fairly weak to power failures, rendering the pen drive completely useless (thats at least 40 bucks wasted just because of bad luck).

Edit:

The only problem I see in the "Strengths and weaknesses" is that it might not be clear which are the weaknesses because they are not stipulated specifically as a weakness. Some emphasis could be added to state the word "disavantage" or "weakness" in each sentence that is implying a weakness.

The fact is that USB Flash Drives have only one *major* weakness: limited use.

One can write to the flash memory only so many times and then it is *poof* ... That is complicated by the fact that many programs pay no attention to how many times and ways they write to a drive. The end user thinks one copy of a jpeg is one write but that is not true. Several to many writes occur on the copy of just one file and that is multiplied, in a reduced manner, by the number of files copied. In fairness, all recordable media have limited use but flash is one of the most limited(except for the floppies I have purchased in the last five years which got about two writes before going bad).

One can add that losing the drive is a weakness because it can easily disappear into a car seat or a couch so care has to be taken to keep that from happening. Losing the cap on the connector is a problem too.

Weakness to power failure is not the device as much as the USB technology, mainboard and end-user lack of proper protection against such events. Claiming that as a weakness for a flash drive is way out on a small limb. Perhaps a reference to USB technology' weaknesses would be more appropos.

Depending upon the comparison used, the limited speed could be considered a weakness. Hard disk drives have faster transfer rates. In comparison to other so-called "portable" media USB flash drives win, especially compared to any floppy. Both sides should be clearly mentioned.

For use as a replacement for a floppy drive, the following is a huge weakness. These flash drives are still in their infancy and many computer and peripheral device makers simply do not support them and mandate that a floppy disk drive is present to perform such critical tasks as updating the BIOS. In particular, it is extremely difficult to make a USB flash drive bootable across the range of platforms in use today. Even if the platform can boot DOS, it might not boot to USB or only boots to a subset of one of the three types: large floppy, zip drive or hard disk. Virtually all manufacturers require a clean boot to some DOS before a BIOS can be flashed. If the device cannot boot, it is useless as a replacement for a floppy drive. ( To make matters worse, some manufacturers sell computers without floppy drives or the onboard controller but make updates to the system require booting from DOS on a floppy drive. )

Some years back Microsoft identified this problem as it related to MS OS and set forth some guidelines it believed should be implemented to make booting to USB a relatively simple task. To the best of my knowledge, little to nothing has been done to accomplish those objectives. ( RE: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx ) I just finished a week long effort to get boot on a 128MB Corsair Flash Voyager and get it so that my vendors' flash programs will run properly. It cannot be done with tools that normal computer users can access and use. I can boot but the result is "So what?" since the vendor's phlash.exe program will not run properly, etc... In the research effort I found that is a very common problem. I also found that there is no major manufacturer actively working on a *unified* solution. Hence, the removal of floppy drives from computer systems is not going to happen for a long time. ( a very depressing reality, IMO.)

Clarification needed

The flash drive was first invented in 1998 at IBM as a floppy drive replacement for the ThinkPad line of products. Although there is an IBM disclosure, they did not patent it. IBM later contracted M-Systems to develop and manufacture it non-exclusively. M-Systems holds the patent to this device, as well as a few other related patents.

If IBM had publically disclosed this idea and contracted someone to make it non-exclusively how exactly can that other company have a patent on it? Plugwash 19:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

A "disclosure" is a legal submission which says "I/we have or may have some intellectual property in this or that field"; it doesn't actually mean to disclose anything substantive about that invention (doing that, publically, would invalidate any unfiled patent applications). Disclosures are most commonly filed with standards bodies (although they're found in all kinds of inter-company agreements). Say, for example, you're on the ANSI Exploding Weasel subcommitee. ANSI will require you to disclose that you have some pending intellectual property in the field of mustela detonation, but you don't have to disclose what it is. In this case it's likely that IBM tranferred (sold/gave/swapped) the revelant IP to M-Systems, having previously disclosed that they were working on something sorta kinda link that, in some public agreement or filing. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

ok so if there is a patent what number is is it? what exactly does it cover? is it likely to stand up in court? and are other manufacturers generally licenseing it or ignoring it? Plugwash 00:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like patent # 6,148,354. Bloodshedder 05:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

A company called Trek won the lawsuit regarding this patent. Hence, I've changed the "first maker" to Trek - as is proper - until the courts rule otherwise. http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=70859 Clockword 12:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you have gone a little far on this. We need to keep the article a NPOV and a singapore court finding in favor of a singapore company is probably not the last word we should accept. Also we seem to have lost the photo. Perhaps a section on "first Invention" with a paragraph on each company and then summary of court findings? - SimonLyall 19:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The writing prior to my edits: "Dov Moran, President and CEO of M-Systems Flash Pioneers (Israel) invented the flash drive in 1998."

I'm neutral. (Trek also sued a fellow singapore company, successfully) Turns out there's a complicated patent war behind this. With editors caliming various companies or individuals creating the world's first thumb drive, I selected one company whose words are at least substantiated by a word of authority (like a court). If we find any legal ruling in a company's favour (even if it throws a doubt on the original court's judgement) we must revamp the first part to add that definitely. Clockword 21:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Topics from 2006

POVness

It seems like this article's point seems to be that "Flash storage devices are best compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices." In fact, this is a direct quote. This could probably be reworded. 8.8.201.199 02:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit:

I agree that the impression is to use a USB flash drive rather than something else. While I agree with it, I do not think the article should imply such. Other mechanisms for media transport might be more appropriate under certain circumstances. A rewording of, e.g.,

"Flash storage devices provide some exceptional benefits compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices. They also provide some specific problems not inherent in other media."

I read "Flash storage devices are best compared to" to mean "It is useful to compare flash storage devices with...". So the sentence seems to be ambiguous - which is another reason for replacing it. I have made a change based on suggestion above. FrankSier 14:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Then adding a link to the "Strengths and Weaknesses" section would be of benefit to the reader.

The statement in the text that many mainboards and computers do not have floppy controllers is just plain wrong. What is true is that "some" do not. If someone buys a complete system that does not have a floppy drive in it, it does not mean that one cannot be added to it because there may be an onboard floppy controller. Also, there are USB controlled floppy drives.

Also Note, the use of the word "never" in that paragraph is negative.Jrowle 02:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "never" is (technically) negative word. In the case of "never reached the point of ubiquity" I think it is also factual and therefore NPOV. The case of "never feasible" is I think more tending to POV - costs might have come down for example.FrankSier 14:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

++ "Best" is definately not neutral here. Best would apply to CF's compactness or reliability. Best wouldn't apply to it's limited write cycles or data permanence where HD's or CD-R's outperform. I'd probably say:

"Flash storage devices have some advantages when compared to other common, portable, and swappable data storage devices including compactness and reliability due to their lack of mechanical hardware. However, they currently have disadvantages in the areas of cost, long-term data permanence, and limited write cycles when compared to other mediums such as hard drives and writable compact disks."

This would serve as a summary/intro to the section and then the section can go into more specific detail. 68.60.59.250 08:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Topics from 2007

Merge from JumpDrive ?

This really is just a brand name and synonym for a USB flash drive. This article already mentions the brand, and does a much better job of covering the generic realm of disk-on-key thingies. The page JumpDrive used to be a redirect, but somehow is now a distinct article notwithstanding the Alternative names for USB flash drive article. Comments? --Brownsteve 23:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a merge to me. The only extra info on that page is listing the make. Probably just a redirect. - SimonLyall 06:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thought this was pretty obvious, so I went ahead and merged the two. Ping me back if you disagree... Brownsteve 00:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a guy on eweek.com complaining that using JumpDrive, generically, is an outrage. article:Is There a Flash Memory RAID in Your Future? --Danindenver 14:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Should Xerox be merged into photocopying? It's analogous. Keep them separate. KevinPuj 16:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The term xerox is a totally different case, it is the name of an entire megacorp not just the name of one relatively non-notable product. Plugwash 12:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Transfer speed on virgin units

I discovered that new sticks have lower read speed on yet unwritten sectors. This can make new owners think that they have been conned if they do a speed test and find lower than expected values. I think this phenomenon should be mentioned.

For example see before-and-after pictures here. It is a SanDisk Cruzer Titanium U3 1GB stick, with about 50 MB of preloaded software on the first picture and additional 250 MB of newly copied files on the second picture.

xerces8 --195.3.81.25 09:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this is caused by the never written sectors containing no valid data causing checksum failures and retries. Reading never written sectors is hardly a case that there is much point in optimising. Plugwash 12:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Flash_drive redirecting here, probably misleading

Since there are several kinds of flash-based media as well as internal flash harddrives, redirecting Flash Drive here seems to me to be an error. All of the memory card types of devices can be considered flash drives and are treated as such by most operating systems. (with the exception of the IBM MicroDrive and derivatives). Flash memory-based Hard Drives were/are simply called flash drives. This is how I discovered the redirect.

A better, temporary solution is a disambiguation page for Flash Drive with a redirect from Flash_drive. I'll get to it soon if no one else does.

dygituljunky

Flash drives don't work on some computers

Could lack of understanding by users be considered a weakness? I, for example, do not understand why some USB flash drives work on some computers and not on others. I am beginning to understand that one reason for not working is application or utility software on the flash drive, especially if it set to autorun. I have come across U3 software in particular as causing problems by autorunning (or by trying to and failing). Is there such a thing as a "standard" USB flash drive - or do ones from different manufacturers, or different models from the same manufacturer - differ in terms of how they behave, and what drivers are needed for them? Also - does anyone have an understanding of this that they could put in a way suitable for Wikipedia? FrankSier 14:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Not all flash drives are the same. If your going to purchase a flash drive for cheap money your going to run into problems with them. I own the Sandisk 1.0 gb flash drive. It has worked on 15 different computers with no problems. The past 2-3 years I have write/read on them countless times with no errors. Flash drives used to be an option to purchase, today with Windows Vista out, it's mandatory you have a TOP OF THE LINE flash drive to increase RAM. One thing I like to ask, Where can you buy a computer nowadays with a hard disk drive or a floppy drive? I haven't seen a computer with that accessibilty for atleast a couple years. If you prefer hard drives or floppy drives your best bet is to buy one at Best Buy. Ofcourse you will have to install them in your computer. I guess your not going to like what Samsung is up to. In mid 2007 Samsung will mass produce flash laptops. This will be expensive considering Flash Cost is high; $30 per GB. Ofcourse mostly Industrial businesses, military, Emergency Response Teams will more likely be the consumer. The cost would be around $3400 for a 32GB Flash Laptop. These laptops will be more for high performance not for storing your movies or your music collection, atleast not yet. All you flash drive haters out there. Times are chaging like it or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.138.247.2 (talk) 23:31, 30 January 2007

"One thing I like to ask, Where can you buy a computer nowadays with a hard disk drive or a floppy drive?" - above

uh, are you fucking retarded, pretty much every personal computer available today has a hard disk drive. the few exceptions are some superportable laptops have have solid state drives. BBnet3000 01:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Can we find out who that person [above] is that hasn't been able to find a computer with a hard disk drive in years? That statement, along with the gross number of spelling errors, suggests to me that maybe they shouldn't be editing Wikipedia. It kinda reminds me of Senator Ted Stevens' "Series of Tubes" speech. Chris01720 04:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

"Hard disk" has been quite often misused to refer to a 3.5″ floppy disk, and it seems clear from context that this is such a case. Please remember to be civil.—Random832 15:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved the point about pendrives being too small and easily lost to 'weaknesses', and added a section about power consumption and portability - Heliosphan —Heliosphan (talk • contribs) 15:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

XP files not backward compatible to 98

VFAT LFN support in Windows NT and later versions has a new "feature" that breaks backwards compatiblity with all previous OS, such as 98. Sometimes there is a long filename and a 8.3 shortname. Sometimes there is just an ordinary shortname. But sometimes there is a modified shortname, with two hidden bits that encode whether the filename is lowercase. The older versions of Windows do not understand these hidden bits. They treat the filename as all uppercase, so some filenames may change when reading the files on Windows 98. Often this filename change, from "example" to "EXAMPLE", does not matter, because Windows is mostly case-insensitive. But sometimes it causes software to malfunction, in strange ways. This happens with Portable ClamWin and Portable Nvu. The only ways around the problem are to transfer the files in an archive, to move them over a network, or to use Linux to read and re-write the files with the shortname mount option turned off. 69.87.193.141 22:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This difference should be mentioned somewhere but this isn't the right article for it it as it applies to all fat based removable media (floppies,zip drives removable hard drives etc). Plugwash 21:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that XP photos can't be transfered to 98-is that right? How about my 98 photos-any problem transferring them to XP? John celona 23:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

No we are not saying that, we are saying that in some cases the case of a filename will change when removable media is taken from a NT/2K/XP machine to a 9x machine. With software designed for windows this should not be a problem but some software originally designed for other environments is rather sensitive to the case of filenames. Lukilly the most common sensitive application (java) uses long file extentions so is not affected by this particular issue. The title of this section is grossly exagerating the problem. Plugwash 12:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

SD card versus USB flash memory

These seem to be competing forms of memory storage. Am I correct? What if any significant advantages/disadvantages exist between them? Tmangray 04:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Secure digital cards use flash memory, just like USB flash drives. Same memory technology, different format. SD and the like are generally used more for portable devices. Bloodshedder 04:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

They aren't really competing at least not directly (though lexars USB FlashCard is aimed at competing with both). USB flash sticks were designed to provide a conviniant portable media format for transfer between PCs (competing with floppy, zip, CD-R etc). SD is a format aimed at cameras and similar devices (competing with XD, SM, CF etc) Plugwash 00:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

And then we have both, I would argue that because Sandisk made these that the differences between native SD and native usb flash are negligible -
SD USB drives
I have one of these (an old 512mb one). They're great!
Heliosphan 15/10/07 —Preceding comment was added at 15:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Data transfer speed compared to other media

I would like to see this parameter mentioned as I believe it is important to a consumers experience, is often not specified by vendors, and varies widely for these devices. Comparing data transfer speeds to some baselines such as floppy and hardrive performance provide the reader with some framework for relative comparison. 68.250.132.165 16:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Also it would be nice if someone adds explanation to how the speeds of the faster flash drives are calculated. For example what does 120X mean?--Lefter 13:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lefter (talk • contribs)

games on flash drive

I have seen many flash drives with games like the first super smash bros. This should be included with the common uses. How do people get this game there anyway? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.157.18.147 (talk) 20:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

64GB Drive

The link given points to the Kanguru web site, which does mention a 64GB maximum, but no details seem to be there, in particular the price and packaging - highest capacity I could find was 32GB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.25.251.197 (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

I found a site selling one and will change the reference. I Love Pi 02:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC):

I also found this odd.... 16 gig is all i see? I think a citation needed tag will neeed to be put up and replace that link.... and i dont see anything about the 10 year guarantee either.. on that page..petze 11:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

They sell many fakes on ebay of up to 128GB so this may be one Scoreed 03:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

"Several companies claim to be the first to have invented the USB Flash Drive"

How can this be when the military was using USB flash drives years and years before 2000.

references? - SimonLyall 12:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Relative Time

The description of this technology includes the sentence "Flash memory is actually a combination of a number of older technologies, the low cost, low power consumption and small size being made possible by recent advances in microprocessor technology."

At some point the advances referenced in this description won't be so recent. I think that time has come. We should simply say that this technology is made possible by advances in microprocessor technology and leave out the recent part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cosmicdreams (talk • contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Spam link

I keep removing a spam link and unsourced information provided by an apparent WP:SPA (no other serious edits, focused on adding his service to this page and his company to Wikipedia.). Spryde 15:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Size of disks

I think that a section showing the different memory sizes available over the years as well as the costs would be useful in this section perhaps in a tabel ie Year Size Average cost 2006 128Mb US$24.95 Or something similar, to show how the technology has changed to accomodate larger and larger sizes over time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.221.208.151 (talk) 12:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Data retention

Thought maybe it would be good to include some info on how long data can sit on the flash drive for and if it would or would not be suitable for long-term data storage. I did a little research, looks like 10 years retention is the time most often quoted. --phocks 13:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)