Whate's the difference between...

[Chris Hogg]

a USB memory stick and a USB flash drive, if any?

[Adrian Caspersz]

The terms normally describe the same thing.

However, you can buy a SSD drive that is connected by USB, and on a bad day call it a "USB flash drive". It would probably feel offended though.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks, that's what I thought, but I am not sufficiently up with these things to be certain.

I assume that USB-connected SSD's are high-capacity, high-tech and high-priced jobbies, so I'm unlikely to get one by accident if all I'm after is a cheap low-capacity memory stick.

[Sam Crean]

Nothing, they are just two different names for the same thing most of the time.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks. What I suspected.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

Me too. I have away been slightly confused about the different names.

[John Rumm]

Same thing these days... They typically refer to a small flash memory based storage device with a usb plug on the end.

Originally "memory stick" was a Sony brand name for their propitiatory version of a memory card to use in cameras, MP3 players etc. However while the name became popular and entered common use, the actual format itself did not, and it was eclipsed first by compact flash, then smart media, and now SD / XD / Micro SD etc.

[Brian Gaff]

Or a thumb drive as some call them. Nothing really. There are minor variations in the genre, but basically the same thing. Flash drives can also be sd cards of course, anas the usb and thumb descriptor makes it clearer they are not sd cards. However they are making them so mall now that they do not really look like thumbs or sticks. I saw one that was little bigger than the actual usb plug with a little handle that you could put on a key ring.

Brian

[whisky-dave]

I found one yesterday left in a PC that is the same physical size as a credit card, you pull out a tab and fold it back on tiself by 90 deg and it plugs into a USB port, a thumb drive the size of a credit card :-o

I've been told they like them in china as they are flat enough to fit in a wallet with other cards so are less easily lost... which explains why it was left in a PC the other night :-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Like Sam Crean and Rod Speed, then? No wonder you answered this one.