ScanMyPhotos recently announced that customers can now add a thumb drive to their photo, slide, or negative scanning order, but most people don’t know why they should add this valuable option. There are several reasons to consider ordering ScanMyPhotos USB flash drives in addition to the traditional DVD disc we include with every order. While most DVD discs produced today have an 80-year-plus rating, the optical drive’s lifecycle is beginning to wind down. Most computers in homes still have optical drives, but new computers such as the MacBook and MacBook Pro have phased them out and now ship without them to increase portability and reduce the weight of Apple’s “travel” computers.
Additionally, people view images on many devices, such as tablets, digital picture frames, and gaming consoles. These typically don’t have optical drives or aren’t compatible with a copied disc. So how do you view those digitized photos on these other devices?
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That is where the ScanMyPhotos USB flash drive, also known as a thumb drive, enters. When optical drives aren’t available, a USB port usually is. USB drives, as the name suggests, connect to the USB port of a computer and are plug-and-play. The moment you insert the drive into the USB port, the computer recognizes it, loads its driver from its database, and assigns it a separate drive letter.
What are the main advantages of using a USB flash drive versus a traditional CD/DVD?
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- Thumb drives are exceptionally small, and many can fit easily in a pocket. They are also extremely light in weight and highly portable. Try doing that with a DVD.
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- Due of the absence of any delicate or moving parts, a USB drive is nearly immune to impact trauma. If you drop it on the ground, you won’t scratch it and make it unreadable like you would with a DVD.
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- USB drives come encased in a tough plastic shell that protects them from dust and other damage, such as scratches, unlike optical disks, whose data-recording surface remains exposed to the elements.
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- A thumb drive can be reused repeatedly. Unlike a DVD, which has data permanently embedded in it, you can delete the files on this or any other flash drive to be used for any number of other purposes. Check out this CNET video showing five things you can do with your flash drive besides store data.
Five cool uses for a USB flash drive
- A thumb drive can be reused repeatedly. Unlike a DVD, which has data permanently embedded in it, you can delete the files on this or any other flash drive to be used for any number of other purposes. Check out this CNET video showing five things you can do with your flash drive besides store data.
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- Want to spend less time waiting for data to copy? Most current flash drives are rated to transfer data at 60 MB per second but realistically transfer data at about 30 MB per second. Most computers now ship with 8x or 16x DVD drives, which transfer data at about 10-21 MB per second. If you have 4GB worth of photos to copy to your computer, would you rather be done in just over 2 minutes or almost 7 minutes?
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- Do you have a digital picture frame? Most, if not all, have a USB port, so you can plug your thumb drive loaded with your scanned photos directly into the frame and start watching them instantly.
- USB drives are not dependent on a particular platform. They are platform-independent and work with any operating system. Believe it or not, some optical drives just don’t like burned discs. We encounter this about once a month and still haven’t found a pattern or reason for it.
Order your ScanMyPhotos thumb drive today with your photo scanning order. Transporting your photos from computer to computer or other device has never been easier.
