Have you ever tried to find a computer with a floppy drive to print that important document, only to find out there aren’t any around, or the floppy drive won’t read your floppy disk? Do you get tired of trying to fit several large documents in a floppy disk? Maybe it’s time to consider an USB flash/keychain/pen drive [1]. These are small rectangular pen-sized objects that often have a pocket clip or attach to your keychain, and they have a standard male USB “A” connector built in. You plug the flash drive in any available USB port, and it appears on your desktop as another drive that you can use just like any other. USB flash drives can be mounted by any of the major computer Operating Systems (Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux) on the market today. They have become quite cheap and can be found everywhere. For example, you can buy a flash drive with about 10 times the storage space (128 MB) of your old floppy disk for approximately $20 [2]. Larger sizes are good for backing up important data, and there are even versions that incorporate password security or even biometric security using fingerprints – for the more paranoid out there.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_drive
[2] http://dealram.com/prices/37/128MB.html