Currently, a portable storage device will not surprise a single user with its functionality. However, at one time, a flash drive made a real technological revolution in the field of data storage devices. This device replaced the flexible compact disks, as well as floppy disks, gradually displacing them from the market.
In this material, we will consider the flash drive device, the principle of operation and its connection to a personal computer or to another device capable of reading information from a portable drive. We will figure out how to restore a non-working flash drive, as well as remove write protection.
Portable Flash Device Overview
The USB drive was invented by Israeli scientists working for M-Systems in 1999. But the device itself was patented in the United States of America, also in 1999. The first presentation of the flash drive took place in 2000, where it received its original name DiskOnKey (key drive). The volume of the first portable drive was 8 megabytes, but soon devices appeared on 16 and 32 MB.
At that time, the flash drive could be called a full-fledged gadget, it sold for a considerable price of $ 50, which increased by the end of the year with the advent of more voluminous drives up to $ 100 per piece. The sale was led by IBM.
Currently, flash drives have almost completely replaced outdated CDs from the portable device market. Two terabyte drives from manufacturers such as HyperX and Kingston already exist. Just imagine the size of a half matchbox, on which there are two terabytes of disk space. How does a flash drive with two terabytes work? In the same way as a flash drive with 16 gigabytes, everything is very simple and very effective.
Advantages and disadvantages of a USB drive
Since today these devices are indispensable portable storage media, you should understand what their advantages and potential disadvantages are. After all, it is precisely these two parameters that accompany progress in various technologies and the development of the latest devices. Indispensability means monopolism in any device market. So, let's find out why USB drives are so good, and in the process we will indirectly familiarize ourselves with how a flash drive works.
Benefits:
- Portability and low weight of the device.
- Quiet operation and low resource consumption.
- Low power consumption (primarily due to the lack of mechanical systems).
- Ability to operate at high temperatures.
- Resistant to mechanical stress (unlike hard drives and compact discs).
- Protected from environmental influences (scratches, dust, destruction from drying out).
- Long-term storage of data offline, at best, from 10 years and above, at worst with a poor-quality device from 3 to 6 months.
Disadvantages:
- Limited number of write and erase data before failure. About 5000 rewrite cycles.
- A limited number of USB connector connections is about 1,500 times.
- Limited recording speed, which is very noticeable for the USB 2.0 port (no more than 35 megabytes per second).
- Sensitive to electrical short circuit and radiation, like any other electronics.
- The disadvantage is the shape of the connector and the plug-in drive, due to which the wear of the port and connector increases. This problem was resolved with the USB Type-C output.
Thus, from the above bulleted list, you were able to find out about the advantages and disadvantages of a flash drive. Based on this information, we can conclude that this device in fact has few shortcomings, which, if desired, can be corrected and finalized.
USB stick operating principle
The principle of operation of the flash drive is based on connecting it to the USB port of a personal computer and subsequent operation to download and delete data from it. The USB device is based on the following types of flash memory: NAND or NOR. Flash memory in its composition contains silicon crystals, on the basis of which field-effect transistors with isolated or floating gates are placed. The latter, in turn, can hold a charge, in other words, electrons. It should be noted that field-effect transistors have a drain and a source.
During recording on a USB flash drive, a positive voltage is applied to the control shutter by the controller, thereby some of the charge moves from the drain to the source with a deviation to the floating shutter. A certain part of the electrons after deflection overcomes a small layer of the insulator and then penetrates the floating gate, where, in turn, it remains for a long period (storage). The storage time is given above in the section on the pros and cons, however, this data will be different for different manufacturers and the amount of memory of a flash device.
Flash drive device
The USB device is shown in the image. It is worth saying that when a user connects a USB flash drive and then exploits it for their own purposes, at that moment very complex processes controlled by a memory controller are taking place directly in the portable media itself.
In the above image there are all the basic elements of a "flash drive", but not all. The image below shows the remaining elements of a removable storage medium device .
- USB port for receiving and transmitting data.
- Control points of the board.
- Quartz resonator.
- LED for signaling the operation of the device.
- Write-protect switch.
- A place to connect a memory controller.
This is what a portable portable device is in a disassembled form and decomposed into individual components of the circuit. From the above information, it becomes more clear how the flash drive works. And if it is faulty?
The flash drive does not work: how to recover and what to do
This guide will be short because if your removable device fails due to physical malfunctions or due to wear and tear of the functional, it will be more expensive to restore it if you buy a new one. How the flash drive works, you know, you also know from the information presented above what it consists of. Unfortunately, you will not be able to repair it manually without the proper skills, so in a pinch take the device to a service center.
In order to check the operability of a flash drive, it is enough to connect it alternately to different ports on your computer or reader. If none of the ports recognizes the USB flash drive, try connecting it to another computer or device that can read information from the media. If the device is operational, then it will certainly open. Also, to recognize the device on your computer, you can try updating the USB port driver.
The flash drive is write-protected: how to remove protection
There are several simple ways to remove write protection from a flash drive. The first method is physical protection installed on the drive. You can remove it by moving the key to another position (for recording). The second way will be one of the most common solutions to the problem, this is formatting the device to another file system (NTFS and FAT32). An alternative method is to solve the problem through the command line. To do this, start the DiskPart system service through the Run console interpreter, then write the "attributes disk clear readonly" command without quotes.
How to connect a USB flash drive to a computer
The correct connection of a removable drive to a computer is to connect a USB flash drive connector to a USB port that matches the speed of the device’s connector model and the data transfer speed. Accordingly, this is port 2.0 or 3.0, and it can also be a way to connect through the latest Type C port, which is currently widely used by Apple on its macbooks. In some cases, it happens that due to incompatibility of the port and the USB flash drive, the computer does not recognize it. Therefore, connect correctly.
Conclusion
From the above information in this article, you learned about the origins of the removable drive, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the complete device and how the removable Flash drive works. The article examined how a flash drive works and how to properly connect it to a reader. We were also able to get acquainted with how to remove write protection.