Determining the Appropriate Size of Your Flash Drive Part 1

October 14, 2017

The biggest question that most buyers of USB flash drives will ask themselves is, "how much storage capacity do I need?" The answer to this will largely depend on the type of files that you will be saving. To understand how your files will affect which flash drive you need, a quick rundown of bytes and drive sizes can be useful.

Nearly all modern flash drives list their storage capacity in gigabytes, or GB for short. A gigabyte is approximately 1 billion bytes, 1 million kilobytes (KB), or 1,000 megabytes (MB). Storage capacity for a flash drive can vary greatly, from 4GB or less to well over 100GB. As you might expect, larger storage capacities mean larger price tags. To be sure that you have enough room for your files without paying for a device that will never reach its potential, inspect your file sizes and find the appropriate flash drive.

4 or 8GB Flash Drive

Text documents are very small in terms of storage, and a high number of files can be saved on a flash drive with a low storage capacity. Most text documents are less than 200 KB, which means that a 4 GB flash drive could hold hundreds of standard text documents.

Most JPEG photos meant for online use are also quite small and take up little more room than a standard text document. If you are only using your flash drive to back up text documents and JPEG photos, a 4 or 8 GB flash drive should provide more than enough storage for moving content from one device to another.

16GB Flash Drive

Large, high-quality photos can occupy much more space on a drive and will require a larger storage capacity. Tables, charts, and other documents with graphics and organized information can also take up more room than text documents. Music files, though small, can add up very quickly when saving entire albums. If you are moving many large photos, charts, or MP3s, consider a 16 GB drive.