Flash Memory: Difference between revisions
→Common form factors:: Updated
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===Common form factors:===
* '''Solid State Drives''' are the HDD-sized devices that hold quite a few Flash chips and are roughly similar in capacity to the modern HDDs. They are usually marketed as direct replacements for hard drives for people that prefer their speed and indifference to the rough handling, and are not afraid of their price, small sizes, and the whole "fatigue" thing, so they are typically found in standard laptop HDD sizes, and use either the common HDD
* '''Thumb Drives''' are rather similar, differing only in that they have smaller size (only slightly larger than the plug -- typically male USB -- they are integrated with) and capacity, and generally aren't designed to be the main system volume, but intended to to replace removable media, similar to the early [[Magnetic Disk|Floppy Disks]]. They usually use not the SATA interface, like the SSDs, but one of the common outside buses like USB. Most (but not all) thumb drives contain flash memory. Most thumb drives use memory soldered to the drive's PCB; others are bridges to read and write flash cards.
** And then there's the USB bracelet.
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*** CompactFlash is a tiny version of PCMCIA and is electrically compatible with IDE, requiring only a pin converter. Has 50 pins.
*** PCMCIA's successor, ExpressCard, is based on PCI Express and USB, and is being used for some truly enormous flash cards that are basically a whole bunch of readers for other formats squeezed into one card. 26 pins.
** The SIM cards in many non-smartphone cellphones are used as their primary (sometimes ONLY) mass storage device
** MMC (MultiMediaCard), RS-MMC and MMCmicro.
*** SD (Secure Digital), miniSD and microSD are an updated version of MMC<ref>Due to this, SD card readers tend to be backward compatible with MMC.</ref> that, as of the 2010s, is supported by the vast majority of consumer electronics devices that take flash memory cards.
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