A flash drive is a storage tool. USB flash drive is a miniature, portable flash storage drive that plugs into a computer's Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. Whether you refer to it as a pen drive, jump drive, thumb drive, key drive, or memory stick, you have to admit, the USB Flash drive is pretty darn cool. While a single USB flash drive is no where near as cheap as floppies used to be, the capacity of today's USB flash drives is tremendous. A typical USB Flash Drive is about the size of a small pack of gum. Another key advantage of a USB flash drive is that they can maintain data for as many as ten years, far greater than the lifespan of most hard drives. The process of uploading files from your computer to a USB flash drive is also much faster and simpler than burning a CD or DVD. Because of this, the flash drive is a common tool being used by a growing percentage of the population.

Backup your critical data to some type of storage media. USB flash drives are the most portable storage devices. They are an extremely simple, safe and affordable method of removable file storage. You can even create a bootable USB Flash Drive with a properly configured USB flash drive on hand; you'll always have a compatible replacement no further away than your pocket or keychain. Increasingly it seems that the USB flash drive might be exactly what is now needed.