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64-427: RPC-1 and RPC-2 are designations applied to firmware for DVD drives . Older DVD drives use RPC-1 firmware, which allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces DVD region coding at the hardware level. See DVD region code#Computer DVD drives for further information. Some RPC-2 drives can be converted to RPC-1 with the same features as before by using alternative firmware on

128-404: A USB floppy drive key , an ordinary USB flash drive with the capacity to emulate floppy drives, allowing it to be used for updating system firmware where direct use of USB flash drives is not supported. The desired mode of operation, regular USB mass storage device or floppy drive emulation, is selected via sliding a switch on the device's housing. Most current PC firmware permits booting from

192-542: A micro USB plug, facilitating data transfers between different devices. Inside the casing is a small printed circuit board, which has some power circuitry and a small number of surface-mounted integrated circuits (ICs). Typically, one of these ICs provides an interface between the USB connector and the onboard memory, while the other is the flash memory . Drives typically use the USB mass storage device class to communicate with

256-453: A 1 TB USB-C flash drive, the smallest of its kind. [REDACTED] Internals of a typical USB flash drive On a USB flash drive, one end of the device is fitted with a single Standard-A USB plug ; some flash drives additionally offer a micro USB or USB-C plug, facilitating data transfers between different devices. On a USB flash drive, one end of the device is fitted with a single USB plug ; some flash drives additionally offer

320-493: A 2 GB drive being marketed as a 64 GB drive). When plugged into a computer, they report being the larger capacity they were sold as, but when data is written to them, either the write fails, the drive freezes up, or it overwrites existing data. Software tools exist to check and detect fake USB drives, and in some cases it is possible to repair these devices to remove the false capacity information and use its real storage limit. Transfer speeds are technically determined by

384-408: A USB drive, allowing the launch of an operating system from a bootable flash drive. Such a configuration is known as a Live USB . Original flash memory designs had very limited estimated lifetimes. The failure mechanism for flash memory cells is analogous to a metal fatigue mode; the device fails by refusing to write new data to specific cells that have been subject to many read-write cycles over

448-431: A USB flash drive, and has also maintained that it is the original inventor of the device. Finally Pua Khein-Seng , a Malaysian engineer, has also been recognized by some as a possible inventor of the device. Given these competing inventor claims, patent disputes involving the USB flash drive have arisen over the years. Both Trek 2000 International and Netac Technology have accused others of infringing their patents on

512-428: A Universal Serial Bus-Based PC Flash Disk". The patent was subsequently granted on November 14, 2000 and these individuals have often been recognized as the inventors of the USB flash drive. Also in 1999, Shimon Shmueli , an engineer at IBM, submitted an invention disclosure asserting that he had invented the USB flash drive. A Singaporean company named Trek 2000 International is the first company known to have sold

576-407: A battery to a standard flash memory control microprocessor so it can also serve as a music playback decoder. Most of these players can also be used as a conventional flash drive, for storing files of any type. There are typically five parts to a flash drive: The typical device may also include: Most USB flash drives weigh less than 30 g (1 oz). While some manufacturers are competing for

640-670: A challenging subject that depends on the SLC / MLC / TLC memory type, size of the flash memory chips, and actual usage pattern. As a result, a USB flash drive can last from a few days to several hundred years. Regardless of the endurance of the memory itself, the USB connector hardware is specified to withstand only around 1,500 insert-removal cycles. Counterfeit USB flash drives are sometimes sold with claims of having higher capacities than they actually possess. These are typically low-capacity USB drives with modified flash memory controller firmware that emulates larger capacity drives (for example,

704-495: A computer, exfiltrate data, or spy on the user. Other security researchers have worked further on how to exploit the principles behind BadUSB, releasing at the same time the source code of hacking tools that can be used to modify the behavior of different USB devices. USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive , memory stick , and pen drive / pendrive ) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive

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768-417: A consistent environment necessary for running more complex programs at the user's discretion. This required programming the computer to run those programs automatically. Furthermore, as companies, universities, and marketers wanted to sell computers to laypeople with little technical knowledge, greater automation became necessary to allow a lay-user to easily run programs for practical purposes. This gave rise to

832-568: A feature. Furthermore, for installation of Windows XP , using a USB flash drive with a storage limit of at most 2 GB is recommended in order to boot from it. In Windows Vista and later versions, ReadyBoost feature allows flash drives (from 4 GB in case of Windows Vista) to augment operating system memory. Flash drives are used to carry applications that run on the host computer without requiring installation . While any standalone application can in principle be used this way, many programs store data, configuration information, etc. on

896-447: A few very large ones, and mixed reading and writing to the same device. In a typical well-conducted review of a number of high-performance USB 3.0 drives, a drive that could read large files at 68 MB/s and write at 46 MB/s, could only manage 14 MB/s and 0.3 MB/s with many small files. When combining streaming reads and writes the speed of another drive, the drive could read at 92 MB/s and write at 70 MB/s,

960-553: A flash drive can be used to run installation of Windows or Linux from USB, a process that can be automated via the use of tools like the Universal USB Installer or Rufus . However, for installation of Windows 7 and later versions, using USB flash drive with hard disk drive emulation as detected in PC's firmware is recommended in order to boot from it. Transcend is the only manufacturer of USB flash drives containing such

1024-470: A flash drive with 1 TB of storage. The first USB 3.1 type-C flash drives, with read/write speeds of around 530 MB/s, were announced in March 2015. By July 2016, flash drives with 8 to 256 GB capacity were sold more frequently than those with capacities between 512 GB and 1 TB. In 2017, Kingston Technology announced the release of a 2-TB flash drive. In 2018, SanDisk announced

1088-448: A kind of software that a user would not consciously run, and it led to software that a lay user wouldn't even know about. As originally used, firmware contrasted with hardware (the CPU itself) and software (normal instructions executing on a CPU). It was not composed of CPU machine instructions, but of lower-level microcode involved in the implementation of machine instructions. It existed on

1152-441: A program from the provider, and will often allow the old firmware to be saved before upgrading so it can be reverted to if the process fails, or if the newer version performs worse. Free software replacements for vendor flashing tools have been developed, such as Flashrom . Sometimes, third parties develop an unofficial new or modified ("aftermarket") version of firmware to provide new features or to unlock hidden functionality; this

1216-423: A standard type-A USB connection allowing connection with a port on a personal computer, but drives for other interfaces also exist (e.g. micro-USB and USB-C ports). USB flash drives draw power from the computer via the USB connection. Some devices combine the functionality of a portable media player with USB flash storage; they require a battery only when used to play music on the go. The basis for USB flash drives

1280-424: Is flash memory , a type of floating-gate semiconductor memory invented by Fujio Masuoka in the early 1980s. Flash memory uses floating-gate MOSFET transistors as memory cells . Multiple individuals have staked a claim to having invented the USB flash drive. On April 5, 1999, Amir Ban , Dov Moran , and Oron Ogdan of M-Systems , an Israeli company, filed a patent application entitled "Architecture for

1344-661: Is a major threat to system security: "Your biggest mistake is to assume that the NSA is the only institution abusing this position of trust – in fact, it's reasonable to assume that all firmware is a cesspool of insecurity, courtesy of incompetence of the highest degree from manufacturers, and competence of the highest degree from a very wide range of such agencies". As a potential solution to this problem, he has called for declarative firmware, which would describe "hardware linkage and dependencies" and "should not include executable code ". Firmware should be open-source so that

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1408-401: Is also often used, which has up to 500 write cycles per physical sector, while some high-end flash drives have single-level cell (SLC) based memory that is good for around 30,000 writes. There is virtually no limit to the number of reads from such flash memory, so a well-worn USB drive may be write-protected to help ensure the life of individual cells. Estimation of flash memory endurance is

1472-452: Is downloaded and placed onto a FAT16 - or FAT32 -formatted USB flash drive connected to a system which is to be updated, and the path to the new firmware image is selected within the update component of system's firmware. Some motherboard manufacturers also allow such updates without the need to enter the system's firmware update component, making it possible to easily recover systems with corrupted firmware. In addition, HP has introduced

1536-434: Is less frequently updated, even when flash memory (rather than ROM, EEPROM) storage is used for the firmware. Most computer peripherals are themselves special-purpose computers. Devices such as printers, scanners, webcams, and USB flash drives have internally-stored firmware; some devices may also permit field upgrading of their firmware. For modern simpler devices, such as USB keyboards , USB mouses and USB sound cards ,

1600-484: Is not necessarily helpful to install one of these file systems. Sectors are 512 bytes long, for compatibility with hard disk drives, and the first sector can contain a master boot record and a partition table . Therefore, USB flash units can be partitioned just like hard disk drives. The memory in flash drives was commonly engineered with multi-level cell (MLC) based memory that is good for around 3,000-5,000 program-erase cycles. Nowadays Triple-level Cell (TLC)

1664-471: Is referred to as custom firmware . An example is Rockbox as a firmware replacement for portable media players . There are many homebrew projects for various devices, which often unlock general-purpose computing functionality in previously limited devices (e.g., running Doom on iPods ). Firmware hacks usually take advantage of the firmware update facility on many devices to install or run themselves. Some, however, must resort to exploits to run, because

1728-424: Is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc , and usually weighs less than 30 g (1 oz). Since first offered for sale in late 2000, the storage capacities of USB drives range from 8 megabytes to 256 gigabytes (GB ), 512 GB and 1  terabyte (TB ). As of 2023, 2 TB flash drives were the largest currently in production. Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on

1792-412: Is required not to alter in any way the information stored on the computer being examined. Other forensic suites run from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM , but cannot store data on the media they are run from (although they can write to other attached devices, such as external drives or memory sticks ). Motherboard firmware (including BIOS and UEFI ) can be updated using USB flash drives. Usually, new firmware

1856-543: Is stored in non-volatile memory – either read-only memory (ROM) or programmable memory such as EPROM , EEPROM , or flash . Changing a device's firmware stored in ROM requires physically replacing the memory chip – although some chips are not designed to be removed after manufacture. Programmable firmware memory can be reprogrammed via a procedure sometimes called flashing . Common reasons for changing firmware include fixing bugs and adding features . Ascher Opler used

1920-568: Is supported in Windows 7 and Windows Vista (Service Pack 2 with a hotfix). A recent development for the use of a USB Flash Drive as an application carrier is to carry the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) application developed by Microsoft . COFEE is a set of applications designed to search for and extract digital evidence on computers confiscated from suspects. Forensic software

1984-529: The FAT32 , or exFAT file systems . The ubiquity of the FAT32 file system allows the drive to be accessed on virtually any host device with USB support. Also, standard FAT maintenance utilities (e.g., ScanDisk ) can be used to repair or retrieve corrupted data . However, because a flash drive appears as a USB-connected hard drive to the host system, the drive can be reformatted to any file system supported by

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2048-471: The Xbox One , PlayStation 4 , DVD players, automobile entertainment systems, and in a number of handheld devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, though the electronically similar SD card is better suited for those devices, due to their standardized form factor, which allows the card to be housed inside a device without protruding. A flash drive consists of a small printed circuit board carrying

2112-572: The Equation Group in at least 42 countries. Mark Shuttleworth , the founder of the company Canonical , which created the Ubuntu Linux distribution, has described proprietary firmware as a security risk, saying that "firmware on your device is the NSA 's best friend" and calling firmware "a trojan horse of monumental proportions". He has asserted that low-quality, closed source firmware

2176-716: The GUI or even the battery life. Smartphones have a firmware over the air upgrade capability for adding new features and patching security issues. Since 1996, most automobiles have employed an on-board computer and various sensors to detect mechanical problems. As of 2010 , modern vehicles also employ computer-controlled anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and computer-operated transmission control units (TCUs). The driver can also get in-dash information while driving in this manner, such as real-time fuel economy and tire pressure readings. Local dealers can update most vehicle firmware. Other firmware applications include: Flashing involves

2240-847: The USB flash drive. However, the question of who was the first to invent the USB flash drive has multiple claims persist, the Natec Technology get the basic copyright of American in Dec 7, 2004. And in the lawsuit, the PNY company paid 1,000 million dollars to Natec. Flash drives are often measured by the rate at which they transfer data. Transfer rates may be given in megabytes per second (MB/s), megabits per second (Mbit/s), or in optical drive multipliers such as "180X" (180 times 150  KiB /s). File transfer rates vary considerably among devices. Second generation flash drives have claimed to read at up to 30 MB/s and write at about half that rate, which

2304-725: The USB logo only if sold with a separate extension cable. Such cables are USB-compatible but do not conform to the USB standard. USB flash drives have been integrated into other commonly carried items, such as watches, pens, laser pointers, and even the Swiss Army Knife ; others have been fitted with novelty cases such as toy cars or Lego bricks. USB flash drives with images of dragons, cats or aliens are very popular in Asia. The small size, robustness and cheapness of USB flash drives make them an increasingly popular peripheral for case modding . Most flash drives ship preformatted with

2368-400: The boundary between hardware and software; thus the name firmware . Over time, popular usage extended the word firmware to denote any computer program that is tightly linked to hardware, including BIOS on PCs, boot firmware on smartphones, computer peripherals , or the control systems on simple consumer electronic devices such as microwave ovens , remote controls . In some respects,

2432-452: The circuit elements and a USB connector, insulated electrically and protected inside a plastic, metal, or rubberized case, which can be carried in a pocket or on a key chain, for example. Some are equipped with an I/O indication LED that lights up or blinks upon access. The USB connector may be protected by a removable cap or by retracting into the body of the drive, although it is not likely to be damaged if unprotected. Most flash drives use

2496-426: The clustered data), and the additional wear on flash drives may not be significant. Some file systems are designed to distribute usage over an entire memory device without concentrating usage on any part (e.g., for a directory) to prolong the life of simple flash memory devices. Some USB flash drives have this ' wear leveling ' feature built into the software controller to prolong device life, while others do not, so it

2560-605: The code can be checked and verified. Custom firmware hacks have also focused on injecting malware into devices such as smartphones or USB devices . One such smartphone injection was demonstrated on the Symbian OS at MalCon , a hacker convention . A USB device firmware hack called BadUSB was presented at the Black Hat USA 2014 conference, demonstrating how a USB flash drive microcontroller can be reprogrammed to spoof various other device types to take control of

2624-691: The device more attractive for more applications. By reducing the probability of the device's premature failure, flash memory devices can now be considered for use where a magnetic disk would normally have been required. Flash drives have also experienced an exponential growth in their storage capacity over time (following the Moore's Law growth curve). As of 2013, single-packaged devices with capacities of 1  TB are readily available, and devices with 16 GB capacity are very economical. Storage capacities in this range have traditionally been considered to offer adequate space, because they allow enough space for both

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2688-488: The device's lifetime. Premature failure of a "live USB" could be circumvented by using a flash drive with a write-lock switch as a WORM device , identical to a live CD . Originally, this potential failure mode limited the use of "live USB" system to special-purpose applications or temporary tasks, such as: As of 2011 , newer flash memory designs have much higher estimated lifetimes. Several manufacturers are now offering warranties of 5 years or more. Such warranties should make

2752-628: The drive is formatted or wiped. Although the Kaspersky Lab report did not explicitly claim that this group is part of the United States National Security Agency (NSA), evidence obtained from the code of various Equation Group software suggests that they are part of the NSA. Researchers from the Kaspersky Lab categorized the undertakings by Equation Group as the most advanced hacking operation ever uncovered, also documenting around 500 infections caused by

2816-424: The drive, or on some drives by setting a secret flag in the drive's EEPROM . This computer hardware article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Firmware Firmware is found in a wide range of computing devices including personal computers , phones , home appliances , vehicles , computer peripherals and in many of the digital chips inside each of these larger systems. Firmware

2880-405: The entire contents of the chip. Hardware designers later developed EEPROMs with the erasure region broken up into smaller "fields" that could be erased individually without affecting the others. Altering the contents of a particular memory location involved copying the entire field into an off-chip buffer memory, erasing the field, modifying the data as required in the buffer, and re-writing it into

2944-668: The exact type of memory chip used, and are thought to physically last between 10 and 100 years under normal circumstances ( shelf storage time ). Common uses of USB flash drives are for storage, supplementary back-ups , and transferring of computer files . Compared with floppy disks or CDs , they are smaller, faster, have significantly more capacity, and are more durable due to a lack of moving parts. Additionally, they are less vulnerable to electromagnetic interference than floppy disks, and are unharmed by surface scratches (unlike CDs). However, as with any flash storage, data loss from bit leaking due to prolonged lack of electrical power and

3008-419: The host operating system. Flash drives can be defragmented . There is a widespread opinion that defragmenting brings little advantage (as there is no mechanical head that moves from fragment to fragment), and that defragmenting shortens the life of the drive by making many unnecessary writes. However, some sources claim that defragmenting a flash drive can improve performance (mostly due to improved caching of

3072-430: The host. Flash memory combines a number of older technologies, with lower cost, lower power consumption and small size made possible by advances in semiconductor device fabrication technology. The memory storage is based on earlier EPROM and EEPROM technologies. These had limited capacity, were slow for both reading and writing, required complex high-voltage drive circuitry, and could be re-written only after erasing

3136-489: The larger USB drive capacity compared to the " 1.44 megabyte " 3.5-inch floppy disk. USB flash drives use the USB mass storage device class standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Windows , Linux , macOS and other Unix-like systems, as well as many BIOS boot ROMs. USB drives with USB 2.0 support can store more data and transfer faster than much larger optical disc drives like CD-RW or DVD-RW drives and can be read by many other systems such as

3200-446: The manufacturer has attempted to lock the hardware to stop it from running unlicensed code . Most firmware hacks are free software . The Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab discovered that a group of developers it refers to as the " Equation Group " has developed hard disk drive firmware modifications for various drive models, containing a trojan horse that allows data to be stored on the drive in locations that will not be erased even if

3264-448: The memory chips than parallel access , simplifying the manufacture of multi- gigabyte drives. Computers access modern flash memory systems very much like hard disk drives, where the controller system has full control over where information is actually stored. The actual EEPROM writing and erasure processes are, however, still very similar to the earlier systems described above. Many low-cost MP3 players simply add extra software and

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3328-419: The norm as data security needs increase; on-the-fly encryption systems are particularly useful in this regard, as they can transparently encrypt large amounts of data. In some cases, a secure USB drive may use a hardware-based encryption mechanism that uses a hardware module instead of software for strongly encrypting data. IEEE 1667 is an attempt to create a generic authentication platform for USB drives. It

3392-493: The operating system software and some free space for the user's data. Installers of some operating systems can be stored to a flash drive instead of a CD or DVD, including various Linux distributions , Windows 7 and newer versions, and macOS . In particular, Mac OS X 10.7 is distributed only online, through the Mac App Store , or on flash drives; for a MacBook Air with Boot Camp and no external optical drive,

3456-467: The overwriting of existing firmware or data, contained in EEPROM or flash memory module present in an electronic device, with new data. This can be done to upgrade a device or to change the provider of a service associated with the function of the device, such as changing from one mobile phone service provider to another or installing a new operating system. If firmware is upgradable, it is often done via

3520-475: The possibility of spontaneous controller failure due to poor manufacturing could make it unsuitable for long-term archiving of data . The ability to retain data is affected by the controller's firmware , internal data redundancy , and error correction algorithms. Until about 2005, most desktop and laptop computers were supplied with floppy disk drives in addition to USB ports, but floppy disk drives became obsolete after widespread adoption of USB ports and

3584-461: The protocol overhead that translates to a 35  MB /s effective throughput. That same year, Intel sparked widespread use of second generation USB by including them within its laptops. By 2010, the maximum available storage capacity for the devices had reached upwards of 128 GB. USB 3.0 was slow to appear in laptops. Through 2010, the majority of laptop models still contained only USB 2.0. In January 2013, tech company Kingston, released

3648-572: The same field. This required considerable computer support, and PC-based EEPROM flash memory systems often carried their own dedicated microprocessor system. Flash drives are more or less a miniaturized version of this. The development of high-speed serial data interfaces such as USB made semiconductor memory systems with serially accessed storage viable, and the simultaneous development of small, high-speed, low-power microprocessor systems allowed this to be incorporated into extremely compact systems. Serial access requires far fewer electrical connections for

3712-578: The slowest of three factors: the USB version used, the speed in which the USB controller device can read and write data onto the flash memory, and the speed of the hardware bus , especially in the case of add-on USB ports. USB flash drives usually specify their read and write speeds in megabytes per second (MB/s); read speed is usually faster. These speeds are for optimal conditions; real-world speeds are usually slower. In particular, circumstances that often lead to speeds much lower than advertised are transfer (particularly writing) of many small files rather than

3776-445: The smallest size, with the biggest memory, offering drives only a few millimeters larger than the USB plug itself, some manufacturers differentiate their products by using elaborate housings, which are often bulky and make the drive difficult to connect to the USB port. Because the USB port connectors on a computer housing are often closely spaced, plugging a flash drive into a USB port may block an adjacent port. Such devices may carry

3840-592: The term firmware in a 1967 Datamation article, as an intermediary term between "hardware" and "software". Opler projected that fourth-generation computer systems would have a writable control store (a small specialized high-speed memory) into which microcode firmware would be loaded. Many software functions would be moved to microcode, and instruction sets could be customized, with different firmware loaded for different instruction sets. As computers began to increase in complexity, it became clear that various programs needed to first be initiated and run to provide

3904-444: The trend is to store the firmware in on-chip memory in the device's microcontroller , as opposed to storing it in a separate EEPROM chip. Examples of computer firmware include: Consumer appliances like gaming consoles , digital cameras and portable music players support firmware upgrades. Some companies use firmware updates to add new playable file formats ( codecs ). Other features that may change with firmware updates include

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3968-502: The various firmware components are as important as the operating system in a working computer. However, unlike most modern operating systems, firmware rarely has a well-evolved automatic mechanism of updating itself to fix any functionality issues detected after shipping the unit. A computer's firmware may be manually updated by a user via a small utility program. In contrast, firmware in mass storage devices (hard-disk drives, optical disc drives, flash memory storage e.g. solid state drive)

4032-601: Was 8 MB/s. These differences differ radically from one drive to another; some could write small files 10% faster than for large ones. The examples given are chosen to illustrate extremes. The most common use of flash drives is to transport and store personal files, such as documents, pictures and videos. Individuals also store medical information on flash drives for emergencies and disaster preparation. With wide deployment of flash drives in various environments (secured or otherwise), data and information security remain critical issues. Biometrics and encryption are becoming

4096-424: Was about 20 times faster than the theoretical transfer rate achievable by the previous model, USB 1.1, which is limited to 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s) with accounted overhead. The effective transfer rate of a device is significantly affected by the data access pattern. By 2002, USB flash drives had USB 2.0 connectivity, which has 480  Mbit /s as the transfer rate upper bound; after accounting for

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