The Computer Revolution/Hardware/Jump Drives

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A jump drive is a storage device that is connected to the computer via a USB port. Jump drives are also known as: USB drives, flash drives, and key chain drives. They use flash memory and are very light weight and small in size(physically). They are plug and play devices that are very handy to have around. Jump drives are extremely useful in many different different ways. Transferring files between computers is made very easy with a jump drive. Also, they are very useful and reliable for backing up data. What makes jump drives so convenient are the following: the computer does not need to restarted to recognize the drive, jump drives do not need an external power supply like electricity and/or batteries, jump drives do not wear down as fast as CD-RW's or Floppy disks, the amount of storage is convenient.

Once a jump drive is inserted into the USB port, the computer automatically reads it and assigns a drive letter to it. Also, because it can obtain it's power via the USB port, it does not need a separate power source. Because of previous experience with CD-RWs and Floppy disks, it is obvious that they wear down after a few uses. USB drives on the other hand can be used over and over again without worrying about them getting destroyed so quickly. Lastly, the capacity of USB drives is what makes them even more convenient; they can have a capacity being up to a few gigabytes.