1. Most companies that supply USB flash drives printed with a company brand or logo are principally supplying then as giveaway promotional products – the sort of thing that you pick from a company booth at trade and retail shows. Typically these flash drives won’t get a huge amount of usage and the demands the drives need to support in terms of read/write speed are pretty light.

   Typical read/write speeds of a “standard” promotional USB flash drive are going to be around 4MB per second (write) and 10MB per second (read). This is more than adequate if all you’re doing with the drive is loading up a couple of sales brochures maybe the odd short media file and links to your company web site but, if you’re a professional photographer or wedding video company you may (depending on what you are doing with the drives) need to specify certain minimum requirements – read/write speeds, grade of memory chip etc.

2. If you buy standard promotional USB Flash drives and you then start to load very large video files or wedding portfolios onto them then you’ll immediately notice that they’re not the quickest of products. If you’ve been used to working on Apple Mac’s and you use top end Memory Cards with fast read/write speeds, or perhaps you use Firewire to move data around then by comparison a promotional USB flash drive is going to be a “horse and cart”.

   For example top end SD cards or CF cards have a read/write speed of around 40MB per second – X10 times the speed of standard promotional USB flash drives.

3. Top end, high performance USB flash drives typically have read/writes speeds of 20MB (ish) per second, significantly faster than promotional versions but still not as fast as High Speed SD or CF cards. These high performance USB sticks also carry a significant price premium.
4. If speed of data transfer is an issue for you then you might want to consider getting quotes on printed USB Flash Drives that work to the new USB 3.0 standard – these have read write speed of around 50MB – 100MB per second so they are blisteringly quick! Again, the downside is cost (they’re new so they’re going to be expensive) and you need a PC or Mac that is equipped with USB 3.0 USB ports to take advantage of the speed improvements. They’ll still work on USB 2.0 PC’s but only at USB 2.0 speeds! Still at least if you have USB 3.0 and you buy USB 3.0 sticks you can dramatically reduce your own data-loading times – your customer won’t notice any speed improvements until they upgrade to USB 3.0.
5. A sensible compromise if you’re looking for decent data transfer speeds it to ask your supplier to quote for upgraded USB 2.0 flash drives – they’ll be a little more expensive but you should get something that has a longer warranty period and better performance with speeds closer to the High performance products sold by brands like Kingston and Lacie. Remember if you don’t ask for this you will just get “standard” promotional USB flash drives which are fine they’re just slow!
6. Apart from speed the aesthetic of the USB flash drive will be important but there are lots of different models to choose from and the internal components of all of them can be upgraded to include High Speed, High Performance controller chips and flash memory modules.
7. Ideally talk to your supplier about what you plan to use your USB flash drives for and get them to recommend a solution. If you’ve chosen your supplier well and they know their industry they should not only be aware of the issues but they should be able to put forward a range of different solutions.

Photographers UBS Sticks

At 4pm yesterday we took an order from a customer who needed USB sticks in a hurry. They had their artwork ready and their credit card in hand ready to pay for them providing (and here’s the rub) they could be with them today!

Now at USB2U that’s the sort of challenge we like. So here’s what happened:

• Order confirmed by customer at around 4pm
• Artwork emailed over to their Account Manager
• USB2U designer sets artwork, creates digital proof that is then emailed back to the customer for approval.
• Customer give their approval
• In anticipation of this the USB sticks are prepared ready for printing
• Fifty USB sticks are printed as per the approved artwork, QA checked and signed off ready for despatch.
• Overnight courier collects the printed USB flash drives at 5:15
• The following day the promotional USB flash drives are delivered to a delighted customer who then dashed off to their event with them.

Now we’re not suggesting we can do this for every customer who calls us at 4pm in a panic but where we can help we’ll certainly go the extra mile.

Printed USB Memory Sticks

Our normal rush service is 48hrs from order, we can often do 24hrs (if everything is ready in terms of artwork etc.) and very occasionally if the planets are in the right alignment and the team here are up for a collective challenge we can work minor miracles.

So, if you are looking for a supplier of promotional USB flash drives and a supplier that holds stock locally and can print the stock and get it to you quickly then give us a call. We like exceeding expectation whenever we can!

Eastman Kodak introduced the first Box Brownie in February 1900 and in doing so they opened up photography to the masses. The Brownie was a pretty basic cardboard box with a simple lens that took pictures on 117 roll film. It was simple to use, cheap at $1 per camera and its launch was backed by a marketing campaign that encouraged everyone to pick up a camera and take “snaps”.

During its lifetime hundreds of millions of Box Brownies were sold. Of course of the years it went through a number of design changes and technology “upgrades” but the fundamental box shape remained.

It would be fair to say that the Box Brownie will have introduced many Professional Photographers during the early 20th Centaury to their profession. It also had a huge impact on our ability to chart social history through the snapshots that were taken with the Brownie.

Whilst the Brownie brought photography to the masses it still relied on roll-film technology that needed processing using chemicals and a fair degree of skill. With roll film there was never any ability to preview your photos, instead you had to wait until your film had been developed and printed before you could see what pictures you had taken.

In the same way that the Box Brownie revolutionised photography in the early 20^th Centaury the introduction of digital image technology, digital cameras and mobile phones with integrated cameras has revolutionised photography 100 years later. Today pretty much every mobile phone can take good quality photos and these can be posted onto web sites and social networks sites within seconds and shared around the world.

Kodak USB Sticks

It’s not just the amateur photographer that has switched to digital photographic technology but professional photographers now typically use digital cameras rather than their film based alternatives. One of the benefits for Professional Photographers of this digital revolution is their ability to save and distribute their portfolios electronically. This applies not only to how they save and store their own work but increasingly to how they save and distribute their client “shoots”, portfolios and wedding photos.

For some they will simply email the photos or post them on a web site to be “downloaded”. Others might supply them on a CD or DVD but one of the more recent and innovative trends are to distribute them on a USB memory sticks printed up with the logo and details of the photographer. The “branded” USB flash drives look much more professional than a CD or DVD and help to promote and develop the photographers brand – they in effect become a sales vehicle in their own right and they personify just how much the world of photography has moved on from the early days of the Boxed Brownie.

It’ll be interesting to see if Kodak can survive the next few years and reinvent themselves as a printer company. Realistically we’re likely to have to say goodbye to “Kodak Moments”.

Of course you should load them with data (sales brochures, web links, brochures, etc.) but don’t put yourself through the torture of doing it yourself. Get your supplier of the USB sticks to load the data for you before they are delivered. Most suppliers (providing it’s a reasonable amount of data) will pre-load the sticks for you free of charge. OK, you need to be organised and have your data ready and you might have to provide the supplier with the data early but if you can do this it’s so much easier than trying to load them yourself from you PC in the office!!

Pre-loading data onto hundreds or thousands of memory sticks can take hours and in some cases days, depending on the size of the data you are copying. So don’t do it it’s not good for your health or your sanity.

USB Data Loading

Companies that offer a data-loading service will usually use commercial and automatic USB data duplication equipment that allows them to load thousands of memory sticks pretty quickly. These professional data-loading systems are rack mounted, they manage tens or hundreds of USB sticks at a time and the systems can be expanded to meet demand.

At USB2U we invested in a number of professional data-loading machines a few years ago and we regularly load data on behalf of our customers. All we need is the data and then we create a “master” USB memory stick which we get approved by the customer and then we replicate the data onto the memory sticks the customer has ordered. Simple, painless and hassle free!

Not only that but, the beauty of the professional data duplication equipment that we use at USB2U is that during the data loading process we test and QA each USB stick again before they are sent to our customers. We can also provide detailed reports on the overall amount of data loaded; the data transfer speeds of the sticks and any failures.

The level of investment in this professional equipment is significant but it allows us to offer a complete solution that includes the supply of branded USB flash drives and accessories, data loading and if needed fulfilment. We can also do all of this quickly often responding to request to print, dataload and ship USB sticks in as little as 24hrs

The benefits of handing out promotional USB sticks to help drive brand awareness, to increase sales or simply to give the recipients’ a means of storing and carrying data are well documented.  To a large extent USB sticks have now replaced CD’s and DVD’s as the de facto storage option of choice.

Their popularity has been underpinned by dramatic price falls over the past few years coupled with the availability of much larger memory sizes. A few years ago the typical memory size of a giveaway or promotional USB flash drive was around 128MB, today the most popular size is 2GB and by the end of this year it’s expected to be 4GB.

Personalised USB Flash Drives

Most USB memory sticks that are given out are printed with a single design or brand on them (or in the case of schools and universities it tends to be the school crest or logo). This is fine in most circumstances but sometimes it would be beneficial for every USB stick to be personalised; perhaps with a name or serial number for example.

It makes sense if you’re buying USB flash drives for a school class or perhaps an entire school to add the students name to the logo that is printed – perhaps on the reverse of the USB stick or if there is room adjacent to the logo. This way it’s much easier to identify who owns the sticks should any of them get lost or misplaced (and inevitability with school students)

The challenge if you want a different name or image printed on every USB stick you order is find a supplier that is able to do it and do it for a reasonable price. Most suppliers charge a set-up and print fee for every design they print which could potentially mean 30 different set-up and print charges for a class of 30 students (assuming you had each student’s name printed on every stick)!!

The reason for the charge is because  USB sticks are typically screen printed and a new “screen” would have to be made for every name change but, if you can find a supplier that uses the latest digital printing techniques it should be possible to change the graphics on every USB stick for little or no extra cost.

USB2U is one of the few suppliers of promotional USB memory sticks that can only offer a truly personalised printing option for some of their core products and if you get your order in early enough (and they have the stock to hand) then they can turn around orders in just 24hrs!

Unfortunately just like lots of other sectors that supply businesses and schools with products there are “scam merchants” about that are only too willing to take your business and turn a profit at whatever cost even if that means supplying you with fake or poor quality goods. Given your name will be printed on the USB flash drives you need to be sure you don’t fall prey to their scams or it will reflect badly on your brand and organisation.

Some of the basic things to watch for when buying promotional USB Flash drives are:

1)      Is your supplier using or planning to use “re-cycled” or Grade B flash memory chips inside the USB flash drives they supply you with. As the name implies a re-cycled flash memory module will have been salvaged from a Grade A product that has perhaps failed a full QA process. They are likely to be to correct memory size but they will have a much higher failure rate and will typically perform poorly, e.g. the read/write speeds will be slow.

2)      Check the drives have not been “masked”. Masking is a growing problem and it’s particularly difficult to spot. It involves making smaller capacity flash drives appear to look as though they have more storage capacity than they actually do. Externally the USB sticks won’t look any different, even when you plug them into a PC everything will look “OK”. If you’ve ordered say 1GB USB sticks they will appear as 1GB sticks on the PC (even when you check the properties of the drive) But, if you load data on the drive up to the supposed limit and then take out the drive and plug it into another PC you’ll find the data isn’t there!!

What’s happened is that the manufacturer/supplier has taken say a 256MB flash drive and “masked” it to make it look like a 1GB – they’ll sell it to you as though it’s a genuine 1GB. This is the reason why some supplier prices look so cheap – it’s because you’re not getting what you ordered. Worse they’ll sell it at a 1GB price and pocket the extra profit.

3)      Cheap controller chips and cheap flash memory modules – at the heart of any memory stick are two core components: the flash memory module and the controller chip that manages the read/write process to the flash memory. Both of these components are available from a number of different sources (Intel, Samsung, Hynix etc.) and some perform better than others – the price of them is a reasonable indicator of the performance.

So, if you get offered “cheap” USB sticks then be prepared for these two components to be at the lower end of what’s available. This in turn will impact the speed and performance of the USB sticks. This is not always an issue but if you are planning to load lots of data on the USB sticks or you’re a photographer that will be hoping to load lots of high resolutions images on the sticks then make sure you go for high spec memory chips and controllers.

4)      It’s not unknown for some suppliers to just put a 1GB sticker on a 256MB flash drive and hope they’ll get away without you noticing.

If you don’t want to fall victim to these scams then buy from a trusted and reputable supplier and ideally a local supplier that will take ownership of problems or issues you might have once they have been delivered.

Whilst there are hundreds of suppliers of custom USB memory sticks in the UK the vast majority of these will place their orders on a host of specialised factories in China or they will have their own manufacturing capabilities in China. Either way Chinese New Year will effectively mean that nothing gets produced or shipped for around 3-4 weeks and even when production starts up again it can take a week of two for things to get back to normal.

Buying Custom USB Memory Sticks During Chinese New Year

Normal production and delivery schedules are typically 7-10 days from the date you place your order with a UK suppliers albeit a fairer measure is from the date you approve the production proof which can be a couple of days after the order has been placed. Given the logistics involved it’s no mean feat to make this happen and understandably a major event like a long national holiday can have a dramatic impact.

The key dates to be aware of are the 6^th January to the 4^th February. If you place an order for custom USB memory sticks after the 6^th January then there is a very strong likelihood that you won’t get your order delivered until the end of the first week in February (at best) and most likely mid-February. So, be very wary of any delivery promises you are made over the next few days and weeks because we’re about to enter a very unstable and unpredictable time.

The only safe way to buy Custom USB Memory Sticks if you have a delivery deadline that falls during the next few weeks is to find a local supplier that holds UK stock and can print and dataload (if needed) the stock for you.

Given the costs and risks associated with doing this most of the smaller suppliers won’t be able to offer what is commonly called a “rush service”. Instead, you’ll need to seek out one of the larger and more established companies like USB2U who always carry a large inventory of blank USB memory sticks and have in-house capabilities to print and dataload the USB sticks.

The “Rush Service” that USB2U offer allows them to fulfil orders in as little as 24hrs but during Chinese New Year this can get stretched to 48hrs as demand for the service increases.

For the very latest information about what USB sticks are available and in what memory sizes you are best to give them a call.

Custom USB Boxes

But, if you are giving away your USB flash drives as a gift then there is a judgment to be made about whether the small additional cost of a gift box is a price worth paying – both in cost terms and also in terms of environmental impact.

There is no getting away from the fact that USB sticks make a bigger, better impact when handed out in a printed gift box. It just looks like more thought has gone into the gift and anyone given the gift is going to be more impressed with the gift and they are therefore more likely to remember who gave it to them and think positively about any brand associated with it.

Custom Flash Drive Boxes

Very few people would consider handing out their Christmas or Birthday gifts without first wrapping them up so it is surprising how many businesses give out promotional gifts without considering the packaging options.

There are a wide range of standard gift boxes and tins available for custom USB sticks. They can call be overprinted with a brand or message and typically they will come with a custom foam insert to hold the USB sticks firmly in place.

The incremental cost to get your flash drives supplied in a printed gift box is relatively small and it’s a price well worth paying for greater impact you’ll make.

Understandably for some businesses who have an strong environmental message to push, packaging and gift boxes is a going to be a non-starter, but for everyone else they ought to be considered.

Superspeed USB has been so named because it delivers a 10 fold increase in data transfer speeds compared to the current USB 2.0 standard but to achieve these speeds everything from the PC, to the cable to the peripheral or storage device connected to the PC must support the USB 3.0 standard.

Whilst we’ve seen a number of smaller PC manufacturers launch PC’s with USB 3.0 on-board the lack of any Intel based

USB 3.0

solution has held the market back. The market needs Intel to deliver 3.0 support to drive competition and to bring USB 3.0 prices down.

Some sceptics have also suggested that the Intel has been dragging its heels to allow its own high-speed connection technology called Thunderbolt to get established. Thunderbolt is twice as fast of USB 3.0 and is a joint development with Apple on whose products it is already being shipped.

Mainstream PC’s with Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips onboard and support for Superspeed USB 3.0 are expected to start hitting the shops in May/June 2012. From this point on things will start to get interesting because all of a sudden USB 3.0 will be within reach of most people buying a PC, in fact within a few months it will be the de facto standard on any PC purchased.

With Intel’s support in 2012, USB 3.0 will move into the mainstream and the peripherals and cables that we use with our PC’s will also start to move over to the new Superspeed standard. It won’t happen overnight because un the short term USB 3.0 products will inevitably carry a price premium but within a couple of years USB 3.0 will just be the expected standard and referred to not as USB 3.0 but USB.

For the Promotional USB Flash Drive sector there is unlikely mass change to USB 3.0 flash drives simply because in the short term (next 12-18 mths) they will carry a price premium that most companies won’t want to pay for a “give-away” product. Equally, there is little point paying for a premium high-speed product until you are sure that most people you give them to are able to benefit from the higher speeds on offer. We’re some years away from the ubiquitous use of USB 3.0 and until that time or until the factories stop manufacturing USB 2.0 sticks the standard for promotional USB flash drives will be USB 2.0 – after all, these will still work on USB 3.0 PC’s they just won’t work at the high data transfer speeds.

Our advent calendar is dead easy to use – simply click on the window that matches the date to reveal the offer of the day. There’s no registration needed – you simply claim your offer or gift by mentioning the Gift Code when you send you quote request in or when you speak to one of our account managers.

USB2U Advent Calendar

To give you a taster of what’s going to be on offer the daily deals will include

• Unlimited data-loading on your USB sticks (any size of data will be loaded by us using our professional data loading machines) – we usually charge for any data over 200MB so if you have particularly large files to pre-load onto your USB sticks this an offer that is well worth watching out for.
• Special discounts on certain memory sizes or types of USB flash drive.
• Free pantone matching – match the body colour of the USB stick to one of the colours from your logo or choose a colour that will help your logo stand-out. Colour matching usually costs around £50 so if it’s something you’re interested in then keep an eye out for which window this will be behind.
• Free 16GB USB Flash Drives with every order.

If you don’t think you’ll remember to go to our Advent Calendar everyday then you could follow up on Twitter where we’ll be posting out the offer of the day every day!

Now’s a good time to buy your promotional USB Flash Drives because not only will you be able to take advantage of these cracking deals but you’ll avoid the scramble for USB sticks that takes place every year in January when the factories in China that produce them close to celebrate Chinese New Year.