I have been using universal serial bus flash memory drives as computer hard drives for a while now. However, one that I purchased at a local used computer store bent and broke. However, I do not like Walmart ever.
In the current city I migrated to, there are not that many options for computer products. Microcenter does not exist here. Anyways, I needed to replace that older flash drive that broke.
Walmart stores carry a brand by the name of ONN. I think this is a Chinese company brand. I purchased two ONN universal serial bus flash drives for around eight dollars including tax.
They were both sixteen gigabytes in size. I paid twenty dollars for that old universal serial bus flash memory drive that met their demise. I think that flash drive was eight or sixteen gigabytes in size.
These ONN universal serial bus version two flash drives have a slide mechanism where you can store the end of the connector for protection. That other more expensive universal serial bus flash drive did not. These plastic universal serial bus flash drives can break off quite easily.
You can actually purchase universal serial bus flash drives made out of metal. I actually have one that is probably over ten years old and it still functions like the day I purchased it. That universal flash memory drive I think is sixteen gigabytes in size also.
I have been using universal serial bus memory flash drives as hard drives almost exclusively. They are light weight. The are portable.
Most importantly they are large enough and fast enough to actually install and use an entire computer operating system real time. Here is a potential gold tip. My experiences with modern computer operating systems and universal serial bus flash drives is to try to obtain or purchase universal serial bus version three flash drives or newer.
I have installed and used many operating systems on universal serial bus version two flash drives and the results are not that great. It can depend on the computer operating system. However, many computer operating systems function sluggishly with universal serial bus flash memory version two technology.
There is just not enough computer data bandwidth. In other words universal serial bus memory version two technology transfers data at twelve megabits per second up to four hundred eighty megabits per second. Universal serial bus flash memory version three technology can transfer data up to five gigabits per second.
That is a huge difference in performance. I warn that you may want to only using universal serial bus version three or newer when installing, booting, and using a live computer operating system on flash memory technology. These ONN universal serial bus version two flash drives worked out well at first.
However, after a few months I noticed major problems with using a functioning operating system on these universal serial bus flash technology drives. I would have to backup my important data and install the operating system again. Then I would have to repeat that process.
One of these ONN universal serial bus version two flash drives actually is purposed as a backup flash drive for data only. In other words I cannot maintain a functioning computer operating system on this ONN universal serial bus version three flash drive. I was mostly using MX Linux operating system.
MX Linux is a Debian Linux based derivation operating system. I have since purchased a Western Digital thirty two gigabyte universal serial bus flash memory drive that is version three technology. A huge performance increase and so far more reliable performance.
Anyways, perhaps that will become a topic of a future blog post and Youtube video. These ONN universal serial bus version two flash drives are fine for data backup and data transfer. However, obviously at least these I purchased are not sufficient for use for a full live working computer operating system.
It could have been the constant data reads and writes that caused one of these ONN universal serial bus version two flash drive to have problems on certain sectors of the flash drive. Oh well, these universal serial bus flash memory drives only cost me four dollars each. However, I learned quite a bit by using them as test drives.