There have been a lot of articles on our site recently showing how USBs memory sticks are taking over uses that were dominated by other forms of technology (for example our previous article on how Ford are now installing USB sockets instead of CD players), we have compared the USB flash drive to cloud.  All of these articles and particularly our article on University graduation photographers however got us thinking about how USB flash drives compare to CDs.

Promotional USB Flash Drives vs CDs

Some industries, especially photographers who use promotional devices to store data have been quite slow in moving from CDs to USB flash drives.  Considering the amount of time that logo USB drives have been around and have been affordable enough to compete with promotional CDs most of these industries have been laggards in adopting new technology.  We can’t tar all of the companies within these industries with the same brush as we have been seeing an increasing number of photographers and promotional companies move platforms from the CD to the more advanced branded USB flash drive.  We are however, still surprised at those who are still using CDs and are questioning whether or not they should make the switch.

For those who can’t decide whether or not to change, we wanted to make the most important advantages of using promotional USB memory sticks over CDs as clear as possible:

1. USB flash drives have much quicker transfer speeds.  Whether downloading or uploading data to a USB memory stick the speeds are arguably much faster.  The average transfer speed for a USB flash drive is 480MB/S whereas the average CD drive at 32x has only 39MB/S.  This makes the duplicating time of data much quicker especially if a large amount of devices are being used.
2. Storage capacity ranges from a small 64MB to a huge 16GB and the price changes accordingly accommodating for all data needs – something not possible with CD’s.
3. All USB memory sticks are easily re-usable as opposed to the difficulty involved in writing a CD and having to make sure that the CD/R style is used.  Customers can therefore use the device as opposed to throwing it away after its use.
4. Branded USB flash drives are much smaller and more portable than CDs as they can easily be put into a pocket or onto a key ring without difficulty.  This makes them really effective as a promotional tool especially at trade shows where customers will likely leave carrying a lot of heavy brochures and give-aways etc.
5. USB sticks are not as sensitive as CDs for being scratched and worn down.
6. We know that this point, strictly speaking, is subjective however, we believe that branded USB flash drives are much more appealing and ‘cooler’ than CDs.

Despite these clear advantages that USBs have over CDs we are aware that they do hold some value.  CDs have a large printable area; if that is an important factor in your promotional needs check out our USB credit card range that allow for a large, full colour print area.  Our branded memory sticks also come with a range of packaging options which can also be branded and printed on.  CDs can also be printed at home which may be important for photographers, it is important to note however, that the quality of a products often reflects on the quality of the service or business which is why an increasing number of companies are moving over to branded USB memory sticks.  There is also, most likely a perception that CDs are much cheaper than logo USB sticks however, with the price of flash memory changing all the time and much of the cost in the printing and personalisation of the promotional media the difference in price is getting smaller and smaller.

We hope that we have made our case clear and that anyone who currently uses promotional CDs will give branded USB flash drives a try.