A:
Great question! Flash drives and thumb drives have many similar qualities, but there are a few differences.

A flash drive is a compact USB memory drive that acts a lot like a portable hard drive. You can store data on it, as well as, transfer it from computer to computer. They are able to hold a great deal of information and they come in different storage sizes, from 1 GB to 8 GB and beyond. Those types of drives have easily taken over floppy disks, because floppies can only hold 1.44 MB. That's quite a difference!

Beside being able to hold mass amounts of data, flash drives are as small as a pack of gum and they can easily fit into your pocket for easy transportation. They are also more convenient to use than an external hard drive because of their small size. Nobody wants to drag a hard drive around everywhere they go!

Like I said before, a thumb drive is very similar in the amounts of data it can hold and its size. Thumb drives are like digital lock boxes, because they come with a write protection feature. It's just a switch located at the bottom of the drive that, when it's unlocked, you are able to write data to the thumb drive, but when it's locked, you can only read data from the drive. That feature helps with accidental deletion of your files.

Other than that, flash drives and thumb drives both work to store your personal data, whether it's documents, pictures, music, etc. All you have to do is drag and drop the files you want onto the drive and then you can edit them just like you would anything else. You can also transport the information between different computers very easily. So, if you want to show an awesome picture to your mom or share a new song with your friend, you can do that with either one of the USB drives.

Flash drives and thumb drives both usually work on Windows 98 and SE, ME, 2000, XP, Vista and on Mac OS 8.6, 9.0 and higher, as long as you have USB functions on your computer. They even work on some Linux programs. All of those capabilities depend on your system. The cost of both the devices vary greatly depending on the manufacturer and the size of storage you get.

Basically, the main advantages are they hold more data and they're easier to carry around. They're more practical than a floppy disk, a CD or an external hard drive. So, if you often find yourself wanting to share information on different computers and you want a secure way to save your data, a flash or thumb drive will be perfect for you!

~ Erin