FAQ for Pen Drives

USB flash drives have become the storage media of choice. Snapdeal.com addresses some of the most frequently asked questions about flash drives.

Q: I've heard Pen drives, jump drives, and flash drives. What’s the official term?
A: “Flash drive” is the most commonly used commercial term for portable USB storage media. While “Pen Drive” is often use by consumers, “Flash Drive” is the generic term for the device.

Q: How do I know what storage capacity I need?
A: The largest USB Pen drive currently available is 256GB. These days, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB USB pen drives are more popular with consumers. For documents and even photos, you will likely be fine with that. For reference, a 16GB flash drive will hold more than 35,000 songs, nearly 4,000 photos, or more than 5,000 minutes of video.

Q: Why does my Pen Drive has less storage than what is mentioned on the box/website?
A: You will notice that your new Pen drive does not have the amount of space available that was mentioned on the packing. First thought is that the hard drive is not as large as it was advertised. All Pen Drives and any other type of Storage Media (flash drives, SD cards, external and internal hard drives, etc) need to contain the information on how it is formatted and how the files are stored. This takes up a little bit of space on the drive and therefore a bit of the size is sacrificed in order to use it. Due to the formatting, it will hold less than the space mentioned on the box or carton. All Pen Drives sold on Snapdeal.com are 100% Genuine and come with Warranty from the vendor.

Q: What is the difference between USB 3.0 as compared to USB 2.0?
A: The main benefit to USB 3.0 technology is that it is approximately 10 times faster than USB 2.0 technology. And while this increase in speed may be virtually unnoticeable in some products, like your USB 3.0 keyboard, there are certain types of peripherals that will showcase the speed upgrade, namely Pen Drives and external hard drives. If you’re backing up a large music or image collection, or you’re creating a copy of your video files, transferring these files via USB 3.0 will take much less time than performing the transfer via USB 2.0. USB 3.0 is able to transmit nearly 5 Gbps, whereas USB 2.0 is capable of transmitting 480mbps of data. Because of its much faster speed, a backup that may have taken a USB 2.0 drive more than 15 minutes in the past can now be completed in just over 1 minute on a USB 3.0 drive.

Q: Can I use a USB 3.0 Pen Drive with my existing computer?
A: Yes. USB 3.0 is completely backward compatible. USB 3.0 hard drive will work just fine with your older laptop that only has USB 2.0 ports.

Q: Do I have to install drivers to use a flash drive?
A: No. USB flash drives are “plug and play,” meaning they simply need to be plugged into your computer’s USB drive to work. Prior to ejecting the drive, it is very important that you stop the device by double-clicking on an icon on the system tray. Failure to do so could result in data loss or damage to the drive. Snapdeal.com knows computer users need reliable, convenient USB Pen drives for file storage. With free shipping on orders and excellent customer service, Snapdeal.com is the best place to find great deals on USB flash drives.