A couple of thoughts on USB sticks

A few years ago, many of us moved very tightly to USB sticks. Finally, it became possible to carry a mail program with all correspondence on one small keychain, compilers and working projects themselves, films - and anything else. What can I say, solid pluses.

Nevertheless, for several years of daily work with flash key chains, I found a couple of shortcomings, which I consider quite serious. Next, I will clarify what I mean and offer my thoughts on solving these problems. If you want, this discussion is about making a flash drive with interesting competitive advantages.

1. Connector

Of course, you all know about a regular USB connector (not B, not mini, - ordinary). Almost all flash drives come with it. I believe that it contains two serious problems.
The first problem: you insert a flash drive, and it is determined somehow crookedly. Well, it happens, especially if it is a laptop of a slightly less branded assembly (however, it happens to an old woman ...). Of course, you can say a lot of words about Chinese quality, etc. But in fact - the connector itself is made in such a way that it does not guarantee good contact.
The second problem: one careless movement with the little finger, and the contact was broken. That is, the flash drive is still kind of inserted, and almost did not move. And the contact disappeared - alas, the design feature of the connector. A slightly rougher tolerance when performing one of the parts - and a failure in the file system is inevitable.

After all, it was a great idea in BNC connectors. The idea of ​​one simple movement that captures the device in the connector. The one-on-one implementation will be too monstrous for flash drives, of course.


You can slightly change the fixation approach, for example, something like a modern RJ-45 network connector.

Of course, the direct transfer of the RJ-45 is irrelevant. I just want to say that there should be a fixation, one way or another.

By the way, the USB port has two slots on one side. They could also be used to pin the flash drive. At the same time, locking the flash drive in the slot could still allow you to pull out the flash drive, but with a more noticeable effort. Not only that, the operating system (or the flash drive itself?) Could lock and unlock the pin on the write operations. In general, there is a whole area for improvement.

2. Data

The second problem is more specific. But even more people are facing it.
Unfortunately, at the current stage of technology development, the loss of individual files and the probability of collapse of the entire file system of a flash drive is relatively high. If you have not yet encountered this, then you are very lucky. Many people are constantly faced with the fact that bad touch, improper grounding of the PC case, and maybe a wool sweater, become the reason for the loss of important data. Well, if this is a movie that you transfer from a local network to a friend. And if this is an important working correspondence or source? The answer suggests itself: backup. The software solution, of course, exists, no one has canceled it, especially if it is important data.
But what if you solve the problem differently. We have a flash drive, there is a cap. Imagine a situation (without thinking about how to implement it yet): we worked with important data, turned off the computer, covered the flash drive with a cap and went to another office. What if there is a flash drive in the cap? Then during this time, while the flash drive is in the cap, it synchronizes its data mirror with the main flash drive? By the time you arrive at the office, you will have a full copy of your data. Neither the physical output of the flash drive, nor problems with the file system, nor chip failures, are no longer fatal. In extreme cases, we take the same, only new, flash drive, put a cap on it from the old one, smile and continue to work.
Of course, there are many potential problems and options for this solution. Take at least the question of where in the cap the power for synchronization comes from. But again, there are options. In addition, this problem is not acute for everyone. But I am sure that those who store really important working information on a keychain will appreciate this opportunity, even if it costs two to three times more. For example, I would buy one for myself.

Update: please do not take too closely the examples with BNC and RJ-45. Of course, I believe that the decision should be less intrusive and more lightweight. Which one is the question to the audience. The main thing is that the flash drive should not freely “hang out” in the slot, causing contact bounce.