8 ms·
Poll: What do you call the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files?
Curious to know what the HN community thinks these things are called, since there seem to be so many names. I've tried to get most of the common ones, but if I've missed one, please comment your name for it.
- Thristle 4y agoUsually DOK (saying it like short for doctor)
- dataflow 4y agoI didn't realize this was (still?) controversial. You can literally search on Amazon (and other sites) and see they're listed primarily as "Flash Drives". I thought that was long settled!
- altdataseller 4y agoYeah but I swear they were listed primiarily as “usb sticks” years ago.
- ElSinchi 4y ago"USB" Hey just put the files on the usb
- Balgair 4y agoadded, thank you
- naavis 4y ago"USB stick".
- Balgair 4y agoadded, thank you
- PaulHoule 4y agoFlash drive
- bradwood 4y agoFlash drive
- sliken 4y agoPhone.
- skywal_l 4y agoUSB key
- zelphirkalt 4y agoTrying to get away from "USB stick", I also use "USB Drive", so without the "Flash".
- Brajeshwar 4y agoI'm going to abuse the term “Floppy Stick” from today and use the hell out of it.
- minimalist 4y agoflash diskette
- dkasper 4y agoFlash drive or thumb drive. Use them pretty much interchangeably.
- Espressosaurus 4y agoNot listed: Flash drive. So I picked "USB flash drive".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- housedrafta 4y agoWhich is strange because I have always called it a flash drive and have never heard it referred to as a USB flash drive
- MerelyMortal 4y agoFlash Drive (not "USB Flash Drive")
- paskozdilar 4y agoIn 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 4y ago[deleted]
- spacemanmatt 4y agoi call it clutter
- cgb223 4y ago“USB Drive”
- lukasb 4y agoUSB drive
- joedavison 4y agoUSB key
- csense 4y agoUsually 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.)
- Izkata 4y agoI also only say "flash drive", but I'm opting to not vote because I've heard the full "USB flash drive" on rare occasion and they're as different as other options in the list.
- marcodiego 4y agoIn Brazil, most popular denomination is pendrive. Probably because the first of such a device that became popular here was also a pen.
- ronreiter 4y agoDisk on Key!
- gruez 4y ago"USB mass storage device" is the official technical name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class
- resoluteteeth 4y agoThat also encompasses non-small usb devices that you plug in to transfer files.
- humanistbot 4y agoNice try, but I'm going to out-hairsplit you. "USB mass storage device" is the generic name for a larger class of storage devices, which include 2.5/3.5 inch SATA adapters and can even be implemented by a raspberry pi to do cool dynamic stuff [1]. The OP asked for a subset of USB MSDs that is a "small USB device you plug in." [1] https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/pi-zero-w-smart-usb-flash-drive https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/pi-zero-w-smart-usb-f...
- bool3max 4y agoYour phone is also a "USB mass storage device" when you plug it into your computer.
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y agoUsually it presents as an MTP device (and possibly also other types of device) these days. Phones haven't been USB mass storage devices for years, data corruption due to improper unmounting caused too many issues.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoI never had that problem and want to go back.
- bool3max 4y agoRight, thanks for the correction.
- oso2k 4y agoAlso missing is the misnomer “USB hard drive”.
- gumby 4y agoDo they still exist?
- ilamont 4y agoFormer 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.
- dvfjsdhgfv 4y agoThese are really obnoxious examples as they violate the rules of the language that exist for a reason. If you use an exclamation mark, you want to attract the attention of the reader to something for a reason. Similarly, there are rules for creating initialisms and acronyms and random capitalization changes are not part of them.
- peacemaker 4y agodongle
- drewcoo 4y agoSame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle
- i45_n5 4y agoflash drive
- syeare 4y agoZip disquette is the most fulfilling term
- PainfullyNormal 4y agoI call it a thumb drive, but I named it BARRY_ALLEN.
- alexjplant 4y agoWhen I still worked in government contracting in a physical office many of my coworkers referred to them as "zip drives". As a former avid user of Zip drives and disks it made me wince.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoZip is probably the best name we’re going to get in terms of concise meaning. Might as well reuse it, not like it will clash in the future.
- codetrotter 4y agoYeah, memory stick or usb stick. And likewise, in Norwegian I mainly call it minnepinne just like I mainly call it memory stick in English. Although, in Norwegian I might also say usbnøkkel even though I wouldn’t say USB key in English.
- intrepidhero 4y agoI'm dying to know how "usbnøkkel" is pronounced.
- Corvus 4y agoNote that “Memory Stick” is a trademark of Sony corporation for their proprietary non-USB portable flash RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Stick
- rmellow 4y ago> the small USB device that you plug in to transfer files I'm gonna go with USB Ethernet Dongle
- robotnikman 4y agoThingimajig
- fareesh 4y agoSome of these are very popular regionally. For example "Pen Drive" is almost universal in some parts of India, to the point that I've heard people say "PD"
- picture 4y agoGrowing up in mainland China, everybody used "USB" and sometimes "U盘" which meant "U-drive" more or less
- hppb 4y agoUSB Key
- enriquto 4y ago"usb key"
- haolez 4y agoIn Brazil it's mostly Pen Drive.
- agentwiggles 4y agoThumb drive or flash drive for me, mostly. My aunt, who was an Army Colonel, gave me the first one I ever had, which had a whopping 128 megabytes of storage capacity. This would have probably been in 2003ish. She called it a "geek stick", which is a term I've never heard anyone else use.
- kjellsbells 4y agoI am sincerely hoping that she didnt give it to you by leaving it on a park bench in a Washington DC suburb...
- jasoneckert 4y agoDue to the ever increasing amount of Cybersecurity news, about 5 or so years ago my workmates started called it "the security hazard" - for example, "Hey Dave, can you pass me the security hazard? I need to transfer some big files to the Waterloo Exchange server and don't want to hit the network."
- joshspankit 4y agoI fully support this term being mandatory in all companies.
- amelius 4y agoForbidden stick. They are illegal in my company.
- intrepidhero 4y agoFlash disc is my personal anachronism. Although if anyone out there is calling these things a floppy anything I see I've been outdone. I applaud you.
- MerelyMortal 4y agoOriginally, "disc" was just the optical variation of "disk"
- justsomehnguy 4y agoFYI some slavs call it 'flashka' with an a as in 'flash'.
- amelius 4y agoBy the way, I think it's quite funny that the "save file" icon in many applications is still a floppy disk.
- phabricator 4y ago...and our modern phones don't look like the "Phone" or "Dialer" app icons on my phone. Icons are idioms.
- ridgered4 4y agoWhile it's archaic now, I actually can't think of a better icon that fits all modern meanings. At least it has historical use on its side, even if it's never accurate anymore. I heard once that some young children thought it was actually a picture of a refrigerator (which makes a sort of sense as a real world analog for saving something for later) so maybe this issue has magically solved itself.
- amelius 4y ago> While it's archaic now, I actually can't think of a better icon that fits all modern meanings. I think the modern approach is to hide the entire concept altogether. At least in most SaaS services. Just save continuously.
- gnicholas 4y ago"gum stick" per my wife (I'm a "thumb drive" guy, myself)
- poisonborz 4y agoI'd be ok with anything that doesn't include "USB". The interface has nothing to do with the concept.
- cyann 4y agoWe call them "clé USB" (USB key) in french: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9_USB https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9_USB
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- navjack27 4y agoUSB flash drive or thumb drive
- Ebcidik 4y agoAttack Vector
- NabiDev 4y agoIn my place, it's called "USB Card".
- mixmastamyk 4y agoFlash drive is the one typically. Lot easier to say than yoo-ess-bee… But just realized they aren’t drives any longer, but solid-state storage. Reminds me of my dad who called any music storage “tapes”, even CDs. Could be “removable storage” but a little clunky. What is a better word for removable? Portable?
- esdaniel 4y agoA f'ing security risk :-)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- giomasce 4y agoYou mean a USB wifi dongle?
- Overtonwindow 4y agoUSB drive, or if someone questions me, I might say thumb drive.
- princesse 4y agoUSB key.
- egamirorrim 4y agoEveryone I know calls this a 'Dongle' - how is this not in the list
- samdunham 4y agoBecause "dongle" has a very specific, different meaning. A dongle allows connection between two devices that have mismatched connectors. If someone asked me for a dongle, I'd reply, "From what to what?"
- lessbones 4y agoin my world dongle is either the copy protection USB stick, or specifically the lightning-to-3.5mm headphone adapter, depending on the context... But I guess since USB-C apple era any usb-c adapter does the dongling.
- xsmasher 4y agoIf someone said "dongle" to me today I would assume they mean an adapter of some kind; I've heard it used for the lightning -> audio adapter you need to plug headphones into an iPhone. If I google for "dongle" I see some small USB docks and a few USB=>bluetooth adapters. I first head "dongle" used to describe the small copy-protection device you needed to plug in to use certain expensive softwares. The software would not launch if it could not detect the dongle.
- jmrm 4y agoI find pretty funny how I use "pendrive" or simply "pen" (without translating it) in my mother tongue, like the rest of the people of the part of Spain where I live, and how I use "USB stick" in English due to how many times I read it like that in the Internet.
- gabrielsroka 4y agoPoll results, sorted with percentages: https://gabrielsroka.github.io/hnpoll.html?id=32193431 https://gabrielsroka.github.io/hnpoll.html?id=32193431
- timbit42 4y agoEvery item count is 1 less than the poll shows.
- gabrielsroka 4y agoYes, every item gets a vote of 1 automatically, even if no one votes for it.
- rg111 4y agoIt's always either "Flash Drive" or "Pen Drive". Everything other feels too generic, wrong, or inaccurate. To me personally, I mean.
- chipmonkey75 4y agoI WANT to say "Thumb drive", but I always get ahead of myself and start with "USB" and then either my brain catches up and I say "USB drive" or I lose it and end up "USB thing" or "USB stick".
- cmit 4y agoGoober
- pjdkoch 4y agoUSB pen.
- effingwewt 4y ago[x] Goober
- peter-m80 4y agoAlmost everyone in Spain calls it "Pendrive"
- tedmiston 4y ago"Flash drive" or alternatively "thumb drive" around less technical folks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive