USB Flash Drive - Advantages and Limits

Besides data storing and transportation, USB flash drives have some more benefits. They are also used in:

PC software repair. USB flash drives are excellent carriers of recovery and anti-virus software to infected PCs.
System administration. USB flash drives are widely spread among system and network administrators. They used them for loading configuration information and software for system maintenance, troubleshooting, and recovery.
Application transportation. USB flash drives are also used to carry different applications for installation. For this purpose configuration for flash drives are created. Examples of these kind of configurations are Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers.
OS booting. USB flash drivers that are able to launch an operational system similar to LiveCD, are called LiveUSB.
Audio players. Apple's iPod shuffle and the Creative Labs MuVo are nothing but a smart combination of digital audio players with flash drives.

Advantages

Resistance. USB Flash drives are very resistant to scratches and other kinds of unintentional mechanical damage. They are also protected against dust penetration. These strong points give them substantial advantage if compared with their predecessors, such as compact and floppy disks. This is due to their rigid plastic or metal case. It makes them ideal for transporting data.

Comfort. It is very convenient to use a USB flash drive on modern PCs because it fits almost all devices that have a USB port and the necessary device drivers.

Storage. USB flash drives are extremely compact means of storage. Some flash drives can store more than a CD (700 MB) or even a DVD (4.7 GB).

Limits

Damage. No matter how resistant USB flash drives are comparing with mechanical drives, still they can be damaged or corrupted by serious physical abuse. The circuitry of a flash drive can be harmed by improper wiring of the USB port.

Size. USBs flash drives are appreciated for compact size, but at the same time they can be easily left behind, lost.

Life span. The life span of flash memory devices is measured in number of write and erase cycles. An average life duration of a flash drive (under normal conditions) is about several hundred thousand cycles.

As the device ages the speed of writing process gradually slows. This is an issue of a special matter in some cases (ex: running application software or an operating system).

Write-protection. Only a few USB flash drives are equipped with a write-protect mechanism. It usually features a switch on the driver's housing. This feature makes it possible to use the USB flash driver for repairing virus-contaminated PCs without infecting the flash device itself.

In spite of the above limits USB flash drives are the best in their field. They are constantly used by a wide range of users which proves their efficiency. What really delights is that nothing is static, as USB drive are too. And the best flash technologies are to come.