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USB Flash Pen Drive FAQ
1. What is a USB flash drive?
2. What is the general design of a USB flash drive?
3. What are the differences between USB 1.1 and USB 2.0?
4. Is USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 forward and backward compatible?
5. How do I know if my PC supports USB?
6. Do I need a drive to use the flash pen drive?
7. How to use a flash pen drive properly in order to protect it from damage of electric shock?
8. What are the differences between brand names?

1. What is a USB flash drive?

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It was developed in 1995 to make adding peripherals to computers hassle free, as easy as hooking up a telephone to a wall-jack. Users don’t even need to shut down and restart PCs to attach or remove the USB device. Just plug-and-play! Windows 2000 or XP OS systems provides full hot-swappable support to USB devices. Hot-swappable meaning, you can plug the USB in, or remove it with the computer already on. For earlier Windows version such as 95/98/Me/NT drivers are required.)

2. What is the general design of a USB flash drive?

A USB flash drive consists of non-volatile memory, clock generator, led indicator, a controller, and other additional components/ functions. Beyond this basic configuration, manufacturers may add other the functionalities to the drive, such as VoIP, MP3 player, fingerprint sensor, password protection, etc.

3. What are the differences between USB 1.1 and USB 2.0?

USB 2.0 (Hi-speed USB) increases the data transfer rate from 12 Mbps (Megabits per second) of USB 1.1 up to 480 Mbps.

USB TYPE DATA TRANSFER SPEED
USB 1.1 at low speed 1.5 Mbps
USB 1.1 at high speed 12 Mbps
USB 2.0 at full speed 360 – 480 Mbps

USB 2.0 is both forward and backward compatible with USB 1.1.

4. Is USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 forward and backward compatible?

USB 2.0 is fully backward compatible with USB 1.1. You are able to use a USB2.0 device in a USB 1.1 compliant system, but at USB 1.1 data transfer rate.

5. How do I know if my PC supports USB?

For Windows 95/98/Me/NT users, you can download the free USB evaluation utility to examine your PC’s USB capabilities. Windows 2000 and XP provides full hot-swap support to USB devices.
If your PC was made during or before 1996, it probably doesn’t support USB. For those computers made during or after 1998 almost has USB capabilities.

6. Do I need driver to use the flash pen drive?

No drivers are required for Windows 2000/ME/XP, Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS X, Linux 2.4.0 or higher. Windows 98/98/Me/NT requires appropriate device drivers.

7. How to use a flash pen drive properly in order to protect it from damage of electric shock?

Plug in your flash pen drive after your computer start completely, and remove it before you re-boot your computer. Once your flash pen drive was damaged by an electric current, all the data saved in flash pen drive may not be retrieved or may lost permanently. Users of Windows 2000/XP, should click on the “safely remove?USB device icon at the lower right corner of the toolbar to avoid any potential data corruption.

8. What are the differences between brand names?

Basically, the ways of designing flash pen drive are similar among the different brands. However, each brand has its own design in size, color or material. Some manufacturers design their products with multi-functions such as boot-up, LED light indicator, password protection, fingerprint encryption, MP3 player/recorder, or VoIP.

Memory Card FAQ
1. What is a Memory Card? How do memory cards work?
2. What is the difference between various memory card formats?
3. I just purchased a memory card. Why doesn’t my memory card work?
4. How do I use my memory card? What are handling instructions to use the memory card?
5. Why are some of my files missing on my memory card? Why are some of my data corrupt on my memory card?
6. My card is no longer recognized by my digital camera/ memory card reader. Is something wrong with my memory card?
7. Can I retrieve lost data from my memory card?
8. Why does my memory card show less capacity than listed?
9. How safe is the data stored on memory cards?
10. What should I consider before purchasing a new memory card?
11. What is the definition of X Speed Performance?
12. Is a Faster X Speed Rating for a flash memory card always better?

When a Flash card is rated at 50X, does this mean that data will transfer at 7.5 MB/sec. in any digital camera or other host device? Not necessarily.

A digital camera, cell phone, or other host device is itself limited by the speed of its interface to the Flash card. Often, the host device has a lower read and write speed than the Flash card, so the end result is that the Flash card cannot operate at its best performance level. A good example of this is that a digital camera may only support 10X write speeds, so using a 45X or faster Elite Pro card will not improve performance. Most cameras or other host devices do not have clearly documented Flash card interface read or write speeds, so it may be difficult to know your host device’s exact capabilities.

As a general rule of thumb, digital cameras with up to 5 megapixels will work just fine with standard-speed Flash cards (less than 45X). Newer professional cameras designed for continuous shooting with specifications of greater than 5 megapixels will benefit the most from Elite Pro/Ultimate cards rated at 45X or above.

If using a high-quality Flash card reader to transfer data to a computer, a Flash card with a higher X-speed rating will generally transfer its data faster, thereby reducing the time to copy data from the Flash card to the computer’s hard drive.

Flash cards with a higher X-speed rating are designed to perform faster. The X-speed rating can also be translated into another common measurement of performance – MegaBytes (MB) per second of write speed. To determine the actual MB per second, you must know the value of “X” and do the math using the multiplier number and the value of X as claimed by the product. For example:

Value of X = 150 KiloBytes* per second, noted as 150 KB/sec

50X = 50(multiplier of 150KB/sec) =7,500 KB/sec = 7.5 MB/sec

*1 KB = 1,000 Bytes; 1 MB = 1 million Bytes

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Once you have done your research and know what type of flash card format to purchase there are two features you must consider: 1. Capacity and 2. Speed.
Capacity of a flash memory card is the amount of data that that can be stored and are measured in MB (megabytes) or GB (gigabytes). The larger the capacity indicated on the card, the more room there is for data storage. To confirm the correct capacity sizes for the device, it is advised that you refer to the information provided by the manufacturer of the host device (digital camera, pda, mobile cellular phone).

Speed of the flash memory card sometimes greatly affects a digital device’s performance, especially if higher transfer speeds are needed for the digital device to perform a task. An example is using a low speed rating memory card for a digital camera that requires a higher speed rating. As a result of using a low speed memory card, data of the photo will written at a slower rate, thus increasing the amount of time needed to take photographs. Most flash memory cards use the X rating for speed. More information on X speed rating below: What is the definition of X Speed Performance?

Due to its small size, shockproof capability, sturdy shell and having no moving parts, memory cards have key advantages over other storage devices (CDs and DVDs). Memory cards are less prone to the movement damage and are less fragile than CDs/DVDs.

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There are two main reasons why there is a discrepancy between listed capacity of the memory card and what shows up on your computer. The most likely reason that your 512MB memory card shows up with only 485MB worth of capacity is due to the small discrepancies in algorithms and file formats by various operating systems. Also a portion of memory space is reserved for system files and data sectors for better memory card performance.

The second reason to your card indicating less capacity on the device is due to capacity loss. When manufactured, some devices and card readers were not made to support higher capacity memory cards. An instance of this is 2 GB or higher capacity SD card that shows a memory capacity of 1 GB or less. It is always recommended that you research information on the device manufacturer to verify the correct supported format and capacity.

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You can use hard disk repair programs (Norton Disk Doctor, Scandisk and Disk First Aid) to recover data fragments from the corrupted memory card. Additionally, there are third party programs and data recovery services. Typically, data cannot be recovered if the memory card is not recognized on a device.

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First, make sure that your card is inserted into the device properly; ensure that the pins of the card are facing the plastic in the card port. If the card is inserted properly, however is not recognized on the host devices, it is possible that the memory card has become defective over time. Attempt to format the memory card; this could be done either on the devices (digital camera, mp3 player, pda) or on a computer. If formatting the card is unsuccessful please contact the memory card manufacturer.

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After uploading photos onto your computer, you may find that some the photos are corrupted or missing. The memory card may be defective or a few of the sectors on the card may have been corrupted by sudden power loss. First try to format the card to solve data corruption issues; this could be done either on the devices (digital camera, mp3 player, pda) or on a computer. If this still does not solve the data corruption problem, you should run hard disk maintenance (such as Scandisk on PC’s) on your digital media card. If problems still occur, contact the manufacturer of the memory card.

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