What Is A USB ?

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. USB drive is also referred as Flash Drive. It consists of storage device integrated with Universal Serial Bus Interface. USB drives are typically removable, compact and physically much smaller than floppy disks. They mostly weigh less than 40 gm. USB drive's storage capacity could be as high as 256 GB in 2010, which constantly improving.

Steady improvements and lower price has lead to tremendous popularity in last 5 years. Some of high end USB drives allow more than 1 million write and erase cycles and have more than 10 year data retention period. Flash drives are often used for the purpose same as floppy disks were used previously. Though it is referred as drive, nothing actually moves inside. It has no moving parts. It only has printed circuit board and USB connector, insulated and protected inside a metal, plastic or rubber case. The USB connector is protected with a removable cap. USB drives do not have any battery inside as they drive the power from the USB port itself.

Inside of USB Drive

What is USB 2.0 ?

USB 2.0 is simply a version of earlier USB but at higher data transfer rates. Earlier USB or USB 1.0 had a top transfer rate of 12 Mbps, whereas USB 2.0 can transfer up to the rate of 480 Mbps. Now USB 3.0 has also been introduced giving an amazing data transfer rate of 4.8 Gbps.

What is a USB Port ?

USB ports are the outlets or plugs where the USB drives are connected to carry out the data transfer. Now a days most of the computers and laptops at least have two USB ports. However, it is recommended to purchase a computer or laptop with higher number of USB ports.