The Empire State Building stands at a total height of 1,454 feet, with an interior volume of about 37 million cubic feet.

If you take a swivel USB flash drive (the world’s #1 selling body style) measuring roughly 57 × 19 × 10 mm, it is theoretically possible to fit about 17,760,000,000,000,000 quadrillion flash drives inside the Empire State Building.

Would this be a good conversation starter at a cocktail party?

Ref: Wikipedia

GetUSB.info researches USB products every day from every corner of the internet. While we don’t publish every finding, the research continues with a focus on delivering value to our visitors.

Over the past six weeks, we’ve seen an increasing number of products described as a USB splitter. This trend makes it worth explaining what a USB splitter actually is — or more accurately, what it is not.

A USB splitter does not split a USB signal. The most common use of the term “splitter” comes from telephone hardware, such as a phone splitter for an analog signal. In that case, a single phone line can be split so the same analog signal reaches two phones at the same time. USB does not work this way — at all.

What many sellers call a USB splitter should actually be called a USB hub. A USB hub consists of one upstream port and multiple downstream ports. The upstream port carries the incoming signal, while the downstream ports make that signal available to connected devices. The key phrase here is “available,” because not all ports can receive or use the same upstream signal simultaneously.

For example, if audio is playing from your PC to a USB speaker, a hub will not automatically split that audio signal to multiple USB speakers connected to the same hub. The same limitation applies to video and data. USB signals cannot be automatically duplicated across multiple devices.

Calling a USB hub a USB splitter is a poor choice of words. In fact, we consider this a red flag and a reason to avoid buying products from suppliers who use misleading terminology to describe basic USB hardware.

The closest thing to a true “splitter” is a USB Y-cable. A USB Y-cable has two connectors on the upstream side and a single connector on the downstream side. However, both upstream connectors do not transmit data. One connector provides both data and power, while the second connector supplies additional power only.

This configuration is commonly used with external hard drives (traditional disk drives, not solid-state drives). The purpose is to draw additional power from the host computer using two USB ports and deliver that extra power to the external device.

As shown above, the idea is to connect the two USB Type-A connectors to two USB ports on the host computer, while the single USB connector attaches to the peripheral device. This setup allows the device to receive additional power beyond what a single USB port can provide.

A computer virus is something we all strive to avoid because we understand the consequences and the amount of time and energy required to restore a computer to its original condition. In a recent poll by GetUSB.info when asking users to name the top three ways a computer can get a virus, they responded with:

• Link from an email
• Link from an unsecure website
• USB flash drive

However, if Nexcopy has anything to do with the last answer, a computer virus which spreads by USB flash drive will be a thing of the past.

Nexcopy is a US company based in Southern California who specializes in flash memory duplication equipment, printers, FDA compliant flash drives, copy protection and now a road-blocking malware on flash drives.

A virus will spread via a USB stick because the device is writable. In fact, any device that is connected to a computer which is writeable could spread a virus; other devices such as external hard drives, SD cards, microSD cards, etc. all have the same potential for harm.

But what happens when you turn these storage devices on their head and not allow them to be writable in the first place? This simple yet obvious solution is a gigantic step in the right direction for controlling the spread of a virus via USB.

The Lock License flash drive designed and manufactured by Nexcopy is exactly that. The Lock License drive is a USB stick which is always write protected. The device doesn’t care what it’s plugged into, or when, or how, the Lock License drive will always be read-only.

A virus will spread in a very specific way. A virus is designed to scan newly connected devices and ping them to see if they can spread (if the device is writable). A new device is defined by any computer system when “power” is assigned upon connection, which, coincidentally is the same time the virus will try and spread.