Flash drives allow you to transfer and share photos for your presentations.
Flash drives have the capacity to hold many digital photographs and help complete your computer work-flow. Flash drives are small USB connection devices, also referred to as thumb drives, that resemble small sticks and store large amounts of data. Using a flash drive in coordination with an external hard drive and your computer will help your information become more mobile and secure.
Flash Drive Storage Capacity
Flash drives provide a simple and easy storage for downloading and transferring photos between computers. A flash drive provides anywhere from 512 MB of storage to well beyond 75 GB --- and the technology changes rapidly as data storage drops in price. Downloading images to a flash drive is a simple task and mimics the transfer of any data added to an external drive. A simple drag and drop method should suffice for transferring images onto your flash drive.
Temporary Back Up for Images and Transfer
The flash drive provides two vital functions in the digital work-flow of your photography or computer work. A flash drive can serve as a temporary backup for images if you are traveling or need extra space in a hurry. These pocket size drives also provide a great option for transferring images from one computer to another. This works well if you work with images on a computer located at your office or school and another computer in your home office or study. Simply plug the drive into the USB connection and you can sync files from one source to another. When traveling, you can also keep all your vital images and data documents on you at all times by using a flash drive.
Durability of Flash Drives
Flash drives are ideal for temporary storage or transfer, but not for long-term archiving. Flash drives are normally made of plastic and can break easily if dropped, crushed or tossed into a briefcase and jostled too hard. The smaller size also lends them to collecting debris and damaging the connection points as the devices find themselves in bags, pockets and purses with minimal protection. If you use a flash drive regularly, purchase a small protective case or neoprene casing for the device to extend the life of the drive.
Permanent External Hard Drive Storage and Archiving
When working with images, the best means of permanent storage is an external hard drive, the next step up from a flash drive. These devices can store multiple terabytes at affordable rates and are more stable and durable for long-term storage. If your photo collection is large, research the various archiving methods available for organizing your images. A combination of a cataloging program and a specific folder naming structure will help you access your images as the collection grows over time.(See reference 1) If you are a heavy shooter, it is not uncommon to use 500 gigabytes of storage data or more a year. Knowing where your data is stored is vital when your archive grows to this size. Along with the flash drive, the external hard-drive is a required piece of hardware for your photography work-flow and adds an extra layer of protection if your computer fails or your flash drive is damaged.
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