If you want to know the USB thumb drives or thumb drive types that you can get in the market today, they have different purposes according to their provided service. Similarly, the utility and functionality of every USB drive change and depend on where they are used. With this guide, we will explain and introduce different thumb drives you might don’t know. So here the types of USB thumb drive you need to know.
MultiMediaCard (MMC)
The first type of USB thumb drive that we need to tackle is the MMC or MultiMediaCard. This thumb drive is a tiny flash memory storage unit that people use in their smartphones, music players, eBooks, car navigating system, and many more. This small piece of technology was made jointly by Siemens AG and SanDisk in 1997, and when it was launched, the weight was calculated at two grams, and the size is similar to the postage stamp.
Similarly, multimedia cards are relatively durable and can withstand physical damage because of its metal connectors, instead of pins and plugs, making them popular compared to other major brands such as Sanyo, Hitachi, Nokia, HP, and more. The encryption given in these multimedia cards is making them more famous among big-time companies.
Memory Stick (MS)
The memory stick falls in the large family of flash drive memories that is developed over time. It’s an extractable flash memory card, and Sony developed it in the year 1998. People frequently use memory sticks in camcorders, Playstations, smartphones, DSLRs, digital cameras, and many more. However, they offer different functionality today. Memory sticks look like tiny black chips, and their size is similar to the SIM card referred to as Memory Stick Micro or M2.
Smart Media Card (SM)
Toshiba developed the smart media card in competition with other file formats that people used in 1995. The capacity ranges from 2 megabytes to 128 megabytes, and there’s no production of these cards anymore. However, SM was chosen as the floppy disks successor, and it features one NAND flash chip, and you can use it as your portable device. A smart media card was an excellent invention; however, it became obsolete because of the latest technology that we have today.
On The Go (OTG)
The OTG enables smartphones and tablets to be the host device for the connection of the thumb drive. OTG was introduced in 2001 and enabled keyboards, digital cameras, and flash drives connected to those devices through OTG. Similarly, OTG launched the master-slave role concept between the two devices connected to allow communication links.
Secure Digital Card (SD, SDHC, SDXC)
This thumb drive type is frequently used in digital cameras and photography. SD cards are famous for their fast transmission speed and significant storage capacity. Today, we can use two SD card types: the Micro SD cards and SD Cards. Similarly, SDHC, SDXC, and SD represent the storage capacity variation offered by the cards. The maximum of SD is 2GB, SDHC range from 2 gigabytes to 32 gigabytes, while SDCX provides a storage capacity of 32 gigabytes to 2 terabytes.
Takeaway
A thumb drive is an essential piece of technology because we use them to back up, transfer, and store data at a high-speed rate without encountering any problem. With that said, we also use USB thumb drives for different devices such as smartphones, cameras, tablets, and more. If you still want to learn more about thumb drives, use this article and know the different types of USB thumb drives.