Flash drives commonly utilize USB 3.1 or higher standards, ensuring faster data transfer rates and expanded storage capacities. In contrast, thumb drives predominantly employ USB 2.0 or 3.0 interfaces, offering slower data transfer speeds and limited storage capabilities than flash drives.

A flash drive (also thumb drive [US], memory stick [UK], and pen drive/pendrive elsewhere) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and usually weighs less than 30 g (1 oz).

Individuals and businesses rely on them every day to commute files between home and work, or between work computers. USB drives are so ubiquitous that we scarcely think twice about plugging one in.

The USB “stick” comes from the fact that the first USB drives had the shape of a stick such as a popsicle stick. They were long and thin. They are also called “thumb” drives because the shape of many of the early ones were about the dimensions of a thumb.