Pen Drive

What does Pen Drive mean in its entirety? 

Since Pen Dive is a complete name in and of itself, there is no special full form for it. A thumb drive, sometimes referred to as a pen drive or USB flash drive, is a kind of portable data storage device that combines a USB interface and flash memory. It is frequently detachable, rewritable, and substantially smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than 30 grammes (1 ounce). Since these products first entered the market in late 2000, storage capacity have grown and costs have reduced, just as with almost all other computer memory devices.

The most prevalent flash drive sizes as of March 2016 were 8 to 256 GB, with 512 GB and 1 TB devices being less frequent. In 2018, the largest flash drive available on the market included a 2 TB storage capacity. Certain types of memory chips are thought to physically survive between 10 and 100 years under normal settings (shelf storage period), and some even enable up to 100,000 write/erase cycles.

File transfer between computers, extra backups, and file storage are common uses for USB flash devices. Because they don't have any moving components as CDs or floppy discs do, they are more durable, quicker, smaller, and offer a lot more storage. In addition, they are less vulnerable to electromagnetic interference and surface scratches than floppy discs (unlike CDs). But like other flash storage, it might not be the best option for storing data for an extended period of time because of bit leakage brought on by protracted power outages and the possibility of spontaneous controller failure owing to poor manufacture. The controller's firmware, error correction algorithms, and internal data redundancy all affect how long data can be retained.

History of pen drive

• USB flash drives are built on flash memory, a type of floating-gate semiconductor memory invented by Fujio Masuoka in the early 1980s. In flash memory, floating-gate transistors are employed as memory cells

• Several persons are credited with creating the USB flash drive.

• April 5, 1999 saw the submission of a patent application titled "Architecture for a Universal Serial Bus-Based PC Flash Disc" by Amir Ban, Dov Moran, and Oron Ogdan of the Israeli company M-Systems. The patent was then awarded to them on November 14, 2000. Because of this, these individuals are commonly cited as the USB flash drive's inventors.

• Furthermore, Shimon Shmueli, an IBM engineer, filed an invention declaration in 1999 claiming to be the one who invented the USB flash drive.

• Trek 2000 International, a Singaporean firm, is the first known seller of a USB flash drive and also makes the claim to be the device's original designer.

• Finally, others have proposed Pua Khein-Seng, a Malaysian engineer, as the device's possible inventor.

• Conflicting inventorship claims have led to many patent challenges against the USB flash drive over the years. According to Trek 2000 International and Netac Technology, other businesses are infringing upon their patents on USB flash drives. However, there are still a lot of conflicting ideas about who created the USB flash drive first, even after these legal efforts.

Technological advancements

• One common way to assess flash drives is to look at how quickly they transfer data. Megabytes per second (MB/s), megabits per second (Mbit/s), and optical drive multipliers like "180X" (180 times 150 KiB/s) are some common ways to indicate transfer speeds.

• File transfer speeds vary greatly between devices. Second-generation flash drives have the ability to accomplish up to 30 MB/s and roughly half of the USB 1.1 model's transfer rate, which is limited to 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s) with overhead taken into account. The effective transfer rate of a device is greatly affected by the pattern of data access.

• In 2002, USB flash drives underwent an upgrade to USB 2.0, offering a maximum data transmission rate of 480 Mbit/s. Taking protocol overhead into consideration, this translates to an effective throughput of 35 MB/s. Intel began incorporating second generation USB into their laptops the same year that they were widely accepted. By 2010, the maximum storage capacity of the devices had increased to over 128 GB.

• USB 3.0 has just recently been supported by laptops. Most laptop models still had USB 2.0 connectors exclusively until 2010.

• In January 2013, the electronics company Kingston produced a flash drive with 1 TB of capacity.

• The first USB 3.1 type-C flash drives were released in March 2015, and they have read/write speeds of around 530 MB/s.

• Compared to flash drives with capacities between 512 GB and 1 TB, those with capacities between 8 and 256 GB are more commonly bought.

• Kingston Technology debuted a 2-TB flash drive in 2017.

• 2018 saw the release of the tiniest USB-C flash drive available, a 1TB SanDisk model.

More about flash memory

Flash memory combines a number of older technologies with reduced prices, lower power needs, and smaller sizes made possible by breakthroughs in semiconductor device fabrication processes. EEPROM and EPROM technologies from earlier periods were used in the construction of the memory storage. These read and wrote slowly, had limited store capacity, required intricate high-voltage drive circuitry, and could only be rewritten after erasing all data from the chip.

Afterwards, hardware developers designed EEPROMs having an erasing zone that was separated into little "fields" that could be wiped separately from one another. It was necessary to copy the entire field into an off-chip buffer memory, erase it, and then modify the data in the buffer before rewriting it into the same field in order to update the data in a particular memory address. This required a great deal of computer support, and PC-based EEPROM flash memory solutions sometimes included their own microprocessor systems. Flash drives are essentially a tiny version of this.

Size and packaging design

Most USB flash drives are less than 30 g (1 oz). While some manufacturers compete for the smallest size, with the biggest memory, offering drives only a few millimetres larger than the USB plug itself, others differentiate their products by using elaborate housings, which are often bulky and make the drive difficult to connect to the USB port.

Due to the proximity of USB port connections on computer housings, plugging a flash drive into one port may block an adjacent port. The USB logo can only be placed on a device if it is sold with an additional extension cable. These cables are USB-compatible even though they don't follow the USB standard.

Apart from finding their way into commonplace goods such as watches, pens, laser pointers, and even Swiss Army knives, USB flash drives have also found their way into novelty cases like Lego blocks or toy automobiles. USB flash drives containing images like dragons, cats, or aliens are quite widespread in Asia. USB flash drives are a popular case modding item due to their affordability, portability, and sturdy construction.

Longevity

Flash devices typically employ multi-level cell (MLC) based memory, which has a capacity of 3,000–5,000 program-erase cycles. While single-level cell (SLC) memory, which can hold up to 30,000 writes, is found in some high-end flash drives, triple-level cell (TLC) memory, which can hold up to 500 write cycles per physical sector, is also widely used in modern flash drives. With almost infinite reads from such flash memory, a well-used USB drive may be write-protected to extend the life of individual cells.

The SLC, MLC, or TLC memory type, chip size, and real usage pattern all affect how long flash memory will last. Estimating this amount of endurance is a challenging undertaking. Thus, the lifespan of a USB flash drive ranges from a few days to several hundred years.

Regardless matter how sturdy the memory is on its own, the USB connection hardware is only intended to last around 1,500 insert-removal cycles.