What is usb port? what are the differences between pen drive and thumb drive?...which is better? price of it?.

Question

which company's product is better?

Answer 1

USB is Universal Serial BUS
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/usb.htm

pen drives and thumb drives are same.They are small usb data storage devices . A 512 MB pen drive will cost you around Rs. 900 to Rs.1000

Answer 2

A usb port is that little rectangular hole that is on the side/back of your computer... a thumb drive and a pen drive are the same and you can get them for cheap now as they are comming with better ones every day... you can get a decent one for around $50

Answer 3

Universal Serial Bus (or USB) Port


A universal serial bus port, introduced around 1997, is the gateway to your computer. It's used to connect all kinds of external devices, such as external hard drives, printers, mice, scanners and more. There are normally two half-inch long USB ports on the back of computers built since 1998. Sometimes there are USB ports built into a hatch on the front of a computer. Another view of a USB port can be seen here. If you use a USB hub, (example: 4 port hub), you can connect as many as 127 devices to a USB port. It can transfer data to a speed of 12 megabits per second, but those 127 devices have to share that speed. Since USB-compliant devices can draw power from a USB port only a few power drawing devices can connect at the same time without the computer system complaining.

In 2003, USB 2.0 connectors were introduced on computers. These transfer data at 480 Mbps. Older USB devices work with USB 2.0 ports, but at 12 Mbps. USB 2.0 devices also work with older USB ports, again at the lower speed. USB 2.0 is useful for adding external hard drives like these Maxtor drives


PEN DRIVE
Pen drive is flash storage device whick is works like flppy. Its a small device having a connector to connect the sytem USB. when u connect this device the system shows a icon " removable" device in a drive list which is after the alphabetical order of CD drive. The information in the pen drive can be edited deleted and saved within the drive. Capacity of pen drive may vary from 512M to 5GB. Coming to price a 1GB drive may cost Rs.1200-00 in India. U can buy with offer price, through Times of India daily news paper. But a pen drive is a medium of Virus.


THUMB DRIVE
A Thumb drive (also known as USB drive, pen drive, flash drive, pen drive, jump drive or memory stick) is a storage device that connects to the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port of a computer. The amount of storage space on the drive may vary in size starting at 16 MB (megabytes) to many GB (gigabytes).


Recent operating systems such as Windows XP and Macintosh OS X automatically recognize these devices and allow you to drag and drop files to them from your desktop computer. Older operating systems (e.g. Windows 98 or 2000) may require you to install the driver for the device before it is usable.

The thumb drive is available in storage sizes of up to 8 gigabytes. Most people, however, will find that sizes of 256 megabytes to 512 MB will do nicely. If the person is storing mostly text, with few images, then an even smaller thumb drive may meet the need.

A thumb drive is available anywhere computer supplies are sold. They range in price from about 900 Rs to 9000 Rs or so for a large-capacity drive. They are stable, versatile, durable and portable data storage devices. As such they are ideal for almost any computer user who wants safe, long-term storage for a low price.


you can choose depend on your work.

Answer 4

USB drive

A flash memory card that plugs into the computer's USB port. Small enough to hook onto a keychain, it emulates a small disk drive and allows data to be easily transferred from one machine to another. Software drivers are not required for the latest operating systems, but are available on the Web for legacy systems such as Windows 98, Windows NT and Mac OS 8.

Known By Many Names

Also known as a "flash drive," "pen drive," "keychain drive," "key drive," "USB key," "USB stick" and "memory key," numerous brand names have also been coined such as Lexar's JumpDrive and Trek 2000 International's ThumbDrive. Some products include synchronization software that keeps files updated between computers.

Transfer Speed
USB drive vendors claim to use the same data transfer ratings as CD-ROMs, where each "x" equals 150KB. However, their math is often imprecise. For example, a 90x drive may be rated at 14 MBps, but a simple multiplication yields a different number: 90 x 150 = 13.5MB)

Common uses

Personal data transport
The most common use of flash drives is by individuals to transport and store personal files such as documents, pictures and video.

Computer repair
Flash drives enjoy notable success in the PC repair field as a means to transfer recovery and antivirus software to infected PCs, while allowing a portion of the host machine's data to be archived in case of emergency.

System administration
Flash drives are particularly popular among system and network administrators, who load them with configuration information and software used for system maintenance, troubleshooting, and recovery.

Application carriers
Flash drives are used to carry applications that run on the host computer without requiring installation. U3, backed by flash drive vendors, offers an API to flash drive-specific functions. airWRX is an application framework that runs from a flash drive and turns its PC host and other nearby PCs into a multi-screen, web-like work environment. The Mozilla Firefox browser has a configuration for flash drives, as does Opera.[3]

A Creative MuVo, a small solid-state digital audio player in a flash drive form
Enlarge
A Creative MuVo, a small solid-state digital audio player in a flash drive form

Audio players
Many companies make solid state digital audio players in a small form factor, essentially producing flash drives with sound output and a simple user interface. Probably the best-known of these has been Apple Computer's iPod shuffle, and the Creative Labs MuVo.

To boot operating systems
In a way similar to that used in LiveCD, one can launch any operating system from a bootable flash drive, known as a LiveUSB.

Some other info :
A USB thumb drive is a small, portable storage device that plugs into your computer's USB port. USB thumb drives hold much more data than a floppy disk, and you can easily transfer files to and from them, unlike a CD. USB thumb drives are available in a number of different sizes. Common sizes include 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB.
What is the difference between a USB thumb drive, a USB flash drive, and a USB pen drive?

These are all essentially the same type of device. Different manufacturers use different terms, but they are all external storage devices that you can plug into your computer's USB port.

USB flash drives are NAND-type flash memory data storage devices integrated with a USB (universal serial bus) interface. They are typically small, lightweight, removable and rewritable. As of November 2006, memory capacities for USB Flash Drives currently are sold from 32 megabytes up to 64 gigabytes [1]. Capacity is limited only by current flash memory densities, although cost per megabyte may increase rapidly at higher capacities due to the expensive components. (USB Memory card readers are also available, whereby rather than being built-in, the memory is a removable Flash memory card housed in what is otherwise a regular USB flash drive, as described below.)

USB flash drives offer potential advantages over other portable storage devices, particularly the floppy disk. They are more compact, generally faster, hold more data, and are more reliable (due to their lack of moving parts) than floppy disks. These types of drives use the USB mass storage standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, and Windows.

A flash drive consists of a small printed circuit board encased in a plastic or metal casing, making the drive sturdy enough to be carried about in a pocket, as a key fob, or on a lanyard. Only the USB connector protrudes from this protection, and is usually covered by a removable cap. Most flash drives use a standard type-A USB connection allowing them to be connected directly to a port on a personal computer.

To access the data stored in a flash drive, the drive must be connected to a computer, either by plugging it into a USB host controller built into the computer, or into a USB hub. Flash drives are active only when plugged into a USB connection and draw all necessary power from the supply provided by that connection. However, some flash drives, especially high-speed drives utilizing the USB 2.0 standard, may require more power than the limited amount provided by a bus-powered USB hub, such as those built into some computer keyboards or monitors. These drives will not work unless plugged directly into a host controller (i.e., the ports found on the computer itself) or a self-powered hub.

Comparison to other portable memory forms

Flash storage devices are often compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices, such as floppy disks, Zip disks, miniCD / miniDVD, CD-R/CD-RW and DVD-RW discs.

Floppy disks were the first popular method of file transport, but are rapidly falling out of favor due to their low capacity, low speed, and low durability. Virtually all new computers no longer include floppy drives, and do include USB ports, the Apple iMac being the first to ship this way. However, floppy disks are still in use because of their low cost; they are often the easiest or only way to share files with older systems; floppy drives can be added to new systems either internally or externally.

Attempts to extend the floppy standard (such as the Imation SuperDisk) were not successful because of a reputation for unreliability and the lack of a single standard for PC vendors to adopt. The Iomega Zip drive enjoyed some popularity, but never reached the point of ubiquity in computers. Also, the larger sizes of Zip—now up to 750 MB—cannot be read on older drives. Unless one were to carry around an external drive, their usefulness as a means of moving data was rather limited. The cost per megabyte was fairly high, with individual disks often priced at US$10 or higher. Because moving parts are involved and the material used for creating the storage medium in Zip disks is similar to that used in floppy disks, Zip disks have a higher risk of failure and data loss when compared to flash drives. Larger removable storage media, like Iomega's Jaz drive, had even higher costs for both drives and media, and as such were not pervasively adopted as a floppy alternative. However, as with floppy drives, these technologies are still available and in use as of 2007.

CD-R and CD-RW are swappable storage media alternatives. Unlike Zip and floppy drives, DVD and CD recorders are now common in personal computer systems. CD-Rs can only be written to once, and CD-RWs are only rated up to 1,000 erase/write cycles, whereas modern NAND-based flash drives often last for 500,000 or more erase/write cycles. Optical storage devices are also usually slower than their flash-based counterparts. Compact discs with an 12 cm diameter can also be inconveniently large and, unlike flash drives, cannot fit into a pocket or hang from a keychain. Smaller CD-R media is available, such as business card CD-Rs which are the same dimensions as a credit card, and (slightly less convenient, but with more storage) 8 cm CD-Rs. However all these types are harder to obtain and generally more expensive than the standard 12 cm version. There is also no standard file system for rewriteable optical media; packet-writing utilities like DirectCD and InCD exist, but produce discs that are not universally readable, despite claiming to be based on the UDF standard. The upcoming Mount Rainier standard addresses this shortcoming in CD-RW media, but is still not supported by most DVD and CD recorders or major operating systems. As a result, CD/DVDs are a good way to record a great deal of information cheaply, but not good for making ongoing small changes to a large collection of information; this is a major advantage of flash drives.

Strengths and weaknesses

Flash drives are nearly impervious to the scratches and dust that were problematic for previous forms of portable storage, such as compact discs and floppy disks, and their durable solid-state design means they often survive casual abuse. This makes them ideal for transporting personal data or work files from one location to another, such as from home to school or office or for carrying around personal data that the user typically wants to access in a variety of places. The near-ubiquity of USB support on modern computers means that such a drive will work in most places. A drawback to the small size is that they are easy to misplace, leave behind, or otherwise lose.

Flash drives are also a relatively dense form of storage, where even the cheapest will store dozens of floppy disks worth of data. Some can hold more data than a CD (700 MB). Top of the line flash drives can store more data than a DVD (4.7 GB).

Flash drives implement the USB mass storage device class, meaning that most modern operating systems can read and write to flash drives without any additional device drivers. The flash drives present a simple block-structured logical unit to the host operating system, hiding the individual complex implementation details of the various underlying flash memory devices. The operating system can use whatever type of filesystem or block addressing scheme it wants. Some computers have the ability to boot up from flash drives.

Like all flash memory devices, flash drives can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure. Mid-range flash drives under normal conditions will support several hundred thousand cycles, although write operations will gradually slow as the device ages. This should be a consideration when using a flash drive to run application software or an operating system. To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems (such as Linux) or commonplace applications (such as Mozilla Firefox) designed to run from flash drives. These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer's main RAM memory rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive.

Most USB flash drives do not include a write-protect mechanism. Such a switch on the housing of the drive itself would keep the host computer from writing or modifying data on the drive. Write-protection would make a device suitable for repairing virus-contaminated host computers without infecting the USB flash drive itself.

Flash drives are much more tolerant of abuse than mechanical drives, but can still be damaged or have data corrupted by severe physical impacts. Improperly wired USB ports can also destroy the circuitry of a flash drive, a danger in home-built desktop PCs.



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