Rugged flash drives have been a trend these last couple months. Manufacturers see how popular flash drives continue to be and conclude a more durable version is needed for every day use. So along with the never-ending quest of more data storage, manufacturers are developing ways to make UFDs last longer and handle more abuse.

We put the question out there, “What’s the worst your flash drive went through?” and this is what we found:

It’s predictable that our most popular abuse was dropping them. Although it doesn’t sound like a much, it can be. Flash drives – well the memory in them – are sensitive and cannot take large amounts of shock. Many times dropping a drive from your table top is good enough to damage the drive.

I did find it interesting the next most frequent UFD abuse came from submersing them in water. I’ll assume in this case, the most common mistake is forgetting about the drive and accidentally washing it.

Whatever your daily routine, it’s worth taking an extra few minutes to search out the right flash drive for your habits. Rugged flash drives will become more popular as 1) materials drop in price to build a better box and 2) users continue to put more and more valuable information on their flash drives.

GetUSB.info closed our latest poll asking the all important question about speed: “Is Your Flash Drive Speed Important?”

After 178 votes, it came down to most care but not by much. 40% didn’t care how fast the flash drive was, just as long as the speed wasn’t dog slow.

With file sizes getting bigger and now the average amount of data stored on a flash drive being over 1GB – one can’t help to look at transfer speed. One of the worst things to wait for are file transfers – like watching paint dry.

Thanks everyone for voting. If you’d like to see our latest question, visit GetUSB.info

GetUSB.info just closed our latest poll with the best participation ever, over 150 votes, thank you. This round we asked “How Devastating Would it be to Lose Your Flash Drive?”

By a slim margin the majority of people would be OK as they have original content on another computer. Which makes sense as most flash drives are used for file transfer, rather then file storage. However, for the 20% that said your life is over, you may want to consider some of the following solutions:

• Automatic USB Backup Utility, Free
• MojoPac is a UFD sync software
• Migo Software is also a UFD portable platform solution with backup abilities
• Last, if you don’t own a U3 flash drive, purchase one than grab some U3 backup USB software

Again, thanks for voting – I appreciate the interaction. If you’d like to see our latest question, visit GetUSB.info

So what is the average amount of data someone stores on a flash drive? Well, I asked that question of GetUSB.info visitors and 60% said over 1GB of data and 40% said less then 1GB. The interesting thing about this poll is the spread always stayed about the same. So although just under 100 people voted, it’s probably a good indicator about usage.

I’ll get another poll going in the coming weeks to find out how close or how far away the usage number is from the 1GB mark.

We wrapped up another poll this week and it appears 64% of the GetUSB.info readers have U3 software loaded on their flash drives. Interestingly enough, today Kingston made the announcement they will drop the U3 platform do to high royalty costs and low demand for the product. I for one, think the platform and idea are a nice addition and if you haven’t tried U3 flash drives, you should – you may never go back.