Flash memory is a small, solid-state chip that is weightless, faster, generates no heat, and requires little power. It’s used in flash drives and memory sticks, which can hold a lot of data. Flash drives are more durable and silent than standard hard drives and are expected to replace them soon.
There are significant differences between a standard hard drive and flash memory. A hard drive is a fairly heavy handheld device made up of several spinning platters and a moving head that reads data that has been magnetically imprinted on the platters. Flash memory refers to a memory chip the size of a postage stamp or smaller. The memory chip is solid state or has no moving parts and is therefore less likely to fail. It’s virtually weightless, retains data without power, is faster than a hard drive, generates no significant heat, and requires little power. This is great news for extending laptop battery life, reducing weight, and eliminating fan noise from systems.
Flash memory is used in flash drives and gets its name from the electronic process of flashing a “cell” within the memory chip to erase or modify stored data. Some types of flash drives are also called memory sticks or flash cards and are sold in a variety of configurations for various digital devices and storage purposes.
Flash memory packaged as a USB stick for use with a computer system is an extremely useful invention that replaced the floppy drive. This type of flash drive resembles a BIC lighter in shape with a closed end. The cap pops off to reveal a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector.
USB devices are plug-and-play, which means that the flash drive can be plugged or unplugged into the USB port while the system is up and running. Flash memory can hold a huge amount of data on an extremely small chip. The only deterrent is price, but as the cost of new manufacturing processes is offset by sales, retail prices continue to fall. As of Q1 2007, a 1 gigabyte (GB) flash drive can be purchased for less than US $20 (USD). This is extremely reasonable considering the price of older flash drives of much smaller capacities.
Aside from the physical size, no moving parts, and weightlessness of flash memory, it’s also more durable than a standard hard drive, and completely silent. The benefits of the former are so overwhelming that flash drives are expected to replace the latter in the near future.
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