The best USB drives you can buy today
- Samsung Fit Plus (MUF-128AB) The best USB drive overall.
- SanDisk Cruzer CZ36. A compact and secure USB drive.
- Kingston Digital DataTraveler G4.
- PNY Turbo.
- SanDisk Extreme Pro SDCZ880.
- Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth.
- SanDisk Ultra USB-C.
- Kingston Digital DataTraveler Elite G2.
The USB 2.0 standard offers a theoretical maximum signaling rate of 480 megabits per second, while USB 3.0 defines a maximum rate of 5 gigabits per second. In other words, USB 3.0 is theoretically more than ten times faster than USB 2.0. For example, USB drives will be limited by the speed of their flash memory.
PHOTOS — Compressed (JPEG 100% quality) Images per card.
| Megapixels | File size (MB) | 64GB |
|---|
| 6MP | 1.8 | 30516 |
| 7MP | 2.1 | 26156 |
| 8MP | 2.4 | 22888 |
| 10MP | 3 | 18310 |
Perhaps the biggest difference between a thumb and flash drive is their memory storage type. Flash drives use Compact Flash (CF) while thumb drives are a type of Solid-State Drive (SSD). Not only is CF used on flash drives, but you can also find it in tablets, smartphones, cameras, and MP3 players.
General rule on file sizes
| Flash drive size | 8 MB MP3 | 2 MB Photo |
|---|
| 32 GB | 4,096 | 16,384 |
| 64 GB | 8,192 | 32,768 |
| 128 GB | 16,384 | 65,536 |
| 256 GB | 32,768 | 131,072 |
Number of photos, songs, documents, and video hours a SanDisk Cruzer USB flash drive can hold
| Flash drive capacity | Photos1 | Songs2 |
|---|
| 32GB | 1000 | 2000 |
| 16GB | 500 | 1000 |
| 8GB | 250 | 500 |
| 4GB | 225 | 250 |
What size USB flash drive do you need?
| Size of USB | Photos (12MP) | HD Video (Minutes) |
|---|
| 16GB | Up to 3,800 | Up to 250 |
| 32GB | Up to 7,600 | Up to 500 |
| 64GB | Up to 15,200 | Up to 1,000 |
| 128GB | Up to 30,400 | Up to 2,000 |
DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 is the world's largest-capacity USB 3.0 Flash drive as it will be available in a 1TB capacity later in Q1. It is shipping now in 512GB capacity.
How Many Movies can 128GB Hold?
| Movie Type | Movie Size | 128 GB |
|---|
| SD Movie from iTunes | 1.5 GB | 85 |
| 720p Movie from iTunes | 4 GB | 32 |
| 1080p Movie from iTunes | 5 GB | 26 |
| DVD Rip (Pirated) | 700 MB | 170 |
So a 4GB USB Stick will hold approximately 3.8GB of data as the other 0.2GB is needed to store the firmware needed for the operations to run. If we look at your average ripped . avi or . mpeg film, which is approximately 700mb for a 90min feature-length film, your 4GB stick would hold approximately 5 full movies.
Compare with similar items
| This item 16GB USB Flash Drive |
|---|
| Price | From $12.90 |
| Shipping | — |
| Sold By | Available from these sellers |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 16.0 GB |
Number of pictures that can be stored on a memory device
| Megapixels | File size (MB) | 32GB |
|---|
| 7MP | 2.1 | 13078 |
| 8MP | 2.4 | 11444 |
| 10MP | 3.0 | 9155 |
| 12MP | 3.6 | 7629 |
Storage Chart
| Storage Capacity1 | Photos (Compressed JPEG) | Video Recording2 |
|---|
| 8MP | 24 Mbps (min.) |
|---|
| 512GB | 192000 | 2560 |
| 1TB | 384000 | 5120 |
| 2TB | 768000 | 10240 |
It depends on the quality of your photos, but it is a good amount of photos from say your standard camera or phone its about 10,000. For a typical 5 megapixel photo a 16GB flash drive can hold approx 10,400 of them. For larger pictures, fewer.
Using that as an estimate benchmark, 1GB would hold about 256 photos: 16GB = 4096 photos. 32GB = 8192 photos. 64GB = 16384 photos.
1 TB gives you the option of storing roughly: 250,000 photos taken with a 12MP camera; 250 movies or 500 hours of HD video; or. 6.5 million document pages, commonly stored as Office files, PDFs, and presentations.
- Save to recordable media.
- Save to external drive.
- Store photos across multiple libraries.
- Archive photos in the cloud.
- Use cloud photo services as a backup.
- Print them out (just in case)
- Backup, rinse, repeat.
USB Flash DrivesFlash drives are less permanent than CDs and DVDs, since they operate more like hard drives. The best part about them is their portability. Consider using one to carry photos over to a friend's house instead of a permanent backup device.
All USB flash drives will eventually go bad because their internal memory chips can only be used a finite number of times. Since every other component on USB flash drives can be prone to failure, another vital part of the device is likely to fail long before the memory fails from overuse.
how do I put pictures already on my computer onto a flash drive
- Plug in the flash drive.
- Open Windows Explorer. (Windows Key + E).
- Open the folder with the pictures.
- Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on each picture to highlight.
- Right click on the highlighted pictures and drag them to the flash drive.
- Let go of the right mouse key and left click on Copy Here.
The long-term retention abilities of flash storage isn't quite as well-known as it is for hard drives, since flash storage hasn't been around as long. However, I've had USB flash drives continue to work perfectly after 10+ years, so the potential is definitely there.
Hard drives are good for storing photos because they are cheap, they provide fast access to data, and it's very easy to copy a whole hard drive to another hard drive – especially if you have USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connections. However, backup drives have their limitations.
Here are a few options to secure your beloved memories:
- Back-up your hard drive. Make sure that your images are not saved only in one place (your desktop/laptop computer, for example).
- Burn your images on CDs/DVDs.
- Use online storage.
- Print your images and place them in a photo album.
- Save your prints, too!
