USB connectivity standards have undergone many iterations, and it continues to grow and improve. Our focus regarding the spec pertains to cost-friendly flash drives to suit your purpose.
USB 2.0
Still the most widely used spec. That is changing, but for bulk flash drives purchased with the intent for a mass distribution, USB 2.0 is still perfect due to its cost and rather acceptable speed. It was released as a standard in the year 2000. Wow! Has it been that long? Learn more about that here… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_2.0.
Benefits…
- Greatest cost-savings
- The most compatibility world-wide.
- Speedd to 280 Mbit/s or 35 MB/s
USB 3.0
Offers the same form factor as 2.0(That means shape). The similarities stop there when comparing speeds. USB 3.0 is MUCH faster than USB 2.0. This is not as important to some of our customers, but others of our customers love the speed. Such as audio & video departments that spend a lot of time duplicating productions onto large quantities of bulk flash drives, and buying USB 3.0 flash drives reduce that time by a significant margin. This increase in speed does come at a premium when comparing the costs of these USB specs in custom flash drives. Learn more about the specification… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_3.0.
Benefits…
- Significant compatibility world-wide.
- Backward compatible with USB 2.0 Host Ports.
- Speeds to 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GB/s or 400 MB/s)
So… What Does This Mean?
This means that to keep costs down, buy USB 2.0 preloaded flash drives. We can professionally load the flash drives and eliminate a lot of the work for you.
However, if you are purchasing flash drives to load on your own, or to supply a department that loads them, you may want to do a small time analysis to determine the value of the time spent to load the drives. You may find that the time and labor savings outweigh the cost increase for USB 3.0 flash drives.
As always, one of our salespeople would be happy to lend their experience to your project. Give us a call at 866-458-8415 so we can explain which speed we feel would be best for your situation.