The History of Flash Drives
Flash drives are a revolutionary invention that allowed for easy, lightweight and affordable memory for computers and other electronics. Without the advent of this small storage option, things would be different for consumers today who rely on their compact MP3 player, cellular phone, camera, and video game console. Considering they practically made floppy disks, cassette tapes and other storage devices obsolete, their creation was unheralded at the time before revolutionizing the landscape a few years later.
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Flash Memory
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A man named Dr. Fukio Masuoka at Toshiba invented flash memory in 1984. The name "flash memory" was coined by one of Dr. Masuoka's colleagues, Shoji Ariizumi, who noted that the process of erasing data from the new memory cells reminded him of a camera's flash. The new technology was shown to the world at a conference in San Francisco, CA later that same year, and Intel was quick to adopt the new technology. The first flash chip was released to the computer world in 1988.
Flash Drives
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Although available for years and used in select systems, flash was slow to evolve. In 1997, the first major design change to flash memory allowed for a better response rate and storage capacity increase that lead to the creation of flash media for cameras and other electronics. In 2000, IBM and Trek Technology began selling the first USB flash drives. Starting commercially at memory levels in the kilobyte range, memory capacity skyrocketed over the next several years into the multi-gigabyte level.
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Pros and Cons
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Flash drives are highly durable and are much more resistant to scratches and dust than their predecessor media types. They use very little power, have few or no moving parts, and are smaller and lightweight compared to equal sized capacity drives of other media. The drives use the USB interface to communicate with most modern operating systems without added drivers. They can only manage a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure, and most don't contain any kind of write-protect feature to safeguard data. Due to their size, smaller drives are easily stolen, lost, or misplaced.
Use in Computers
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Flash memory has the ability to be used in computers as a replacement to traditional hard drives. Flash drives are ideal for computer storage considering that they are faster, quieter, more reliable, and use far less power than current drives. Once the cost and limitation in storage capacity is able to equal those of mechanical drives, their use will increase.
Conclusion
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Flash drives have made the world a very different place. New uses and adaptations come almost every year, and the demand is increasing with each new technology. The history of flash drives is not very long, but it has a very bright future ahead of it.
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References
- Photo Credit everystockphoto.com
