Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#21

Post by csense » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

Usually I go with "USB drive", but it's not one of the options so I upvoted "USB flash drive".

"Sneakernet" is a related term I sadly only heard in an era when most PC's are networked. "How are you transferring the files?" "Sneakernet." (Walking floppies or a USB drive across a room.)

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#22

Post by marcodiego » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

In Brazil, most popular denomination is pendrive. Probably because the first of such a device that became popular here was also a pen.

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#23

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

paskozdilar wrote: post #15

In my country it's colloquially called just "stick" (the english word), sometimes "USB stick". "Copy that stuff on the stick." I suppose in english "a stick" refers to any long thin piece of a tree or shrub, so it's ambiguous.

[deleted]

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#24

Post by ronreiter » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

Disk on Key!

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#25

Post by gruez » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

"USB mass storage device" is the official technical name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#26

Post by oso2k » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

Also missing is the misnomer “USB hard drive”.

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#27

Post by gumby » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

Do they still exist?

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#28

Post by peacemaker » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

dongle

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#29

Post by i45_n5 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

flash drive

Re: Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?

#30

Post by ilamont » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

Former colleague of mine, a technology reporter at Computerworld, got a letter from a company about 15 years ago demanding that he not use the term "thumb drive" in his articles unless it was referring to their product. It was a generic term by then, although they may have been trying to trademark it. He basically said "F that" and we continued to use "thumb drive."

In the late 90s and early 00s we sometimes got requests from PR companies working for big tech demanding that we use certain spelling for product names. Two examples that spring to mind are "Yahoo!" and "Windows Me" ... in the later case, we had been using "Windows Millennium Edition" or "Windows ME" and the PR people did not like that.