Chances are you have or have seen one: those little sticks that plug into a computer’s USB port. Computers treat them as removable hard drives, and they have taken over from things like floppy disks, Zip disks and the like for several reasons:
- they’re cheap
- they don’t have any moving parts, so they’re more reliable (although I admit I had one that failed on me).
- they can store lots of information
- they’re easy to carry
- they consume little power
These things have many uses. For instance, in a previous post, I recommended that people who use Windows computers also use a USB memory key as a quick, portable file backup.
If you don’t yet have a USB memory key, here are a few tips for buying one. (Name brand likely won’t matter as much as the following features):
- Get the slimmest design you can. USB ports on computers are placed so close together that if you plug in a “fat” USB key, you will likely block other ports.
- Choose a model that does NOT have a removable cap. People often lose these caps, and letting dust accumulate in the USB plug could hamper its performance.
- Look for keys on which, for instance, the cap pivots around the body, or the USB “plug” can be retracted back into the body (like the nib of a ballpoint pen, but without the click).
- Get the largest capacity you can find. You might surprise yourself with the amount of stuff you will put onto a memory key – there’s no sense going extra cheap.