Odds are, you’ve used a flash drive in your lifetime.

You might have needed one for school or college or received one in a welcome package for a new job.

They are incredibly powerful for their compact size, storing thousands of documents in a safe and convenient way. However, what if they could be used for more than just data storage?

Custom Flash Drive

A custom flash drive is a great new way to promote your business. Imprinting a logo on an interestingly-shaped flash drive can garner attention from people who receive it or simply see it being used.

They are fully customizable, from their size and shape to their capacity. They make great gifts, too! You can never have too many on hand.

Follow along to read more about why you should customize your own flash drive.

It Saves Paper

This is the most basic reason for switching to electronic devices. Being able to store thousands of documents on a tiny object saves so much paper.

Think about it: you’ll no longer need to print multiple copies of an important schedule, document, or memo. Instead, you can carry them around with you and distribute them around the office digitally.

Buying a set of customizable flash drives can help your office become more eco-friendly. If you’d like to learn more about how you can customize a flash drive, follow this link.

Transfers Sensitive Material Securely

Flash drives are great for when you want to transfer sensitive material offline. You eliminate the risk of confidential records and documents being compromised.

Unless you lose your flash drive, hackers cannot access your data. So, no one will know what you have on hand. It’s a great way to not only remain anonymous, but also to make sure that documents remain only in the right hands.

Marketing

As we mentioned before, custom flash drives can be an incredibly effective marketing tool.

Just print your business logo on the front and you’re done! Giving these out at trade shows can be a great way to get your name out there.

Many business owners give them out in conjunction with their business card. Others decide to place them in goodie bags for charity events or on each seat before important meetings.

Another great idea is to bring one to a business presentation.

Load your PowerPoint on to it. Once you’re done presenting, hand the flash drive to your prospects. They will be able to access the presentation whenever they want and you will get free publicity every time they plug in their flash drive.

Buying Guide

Now that you see what custom flash drives can do for you and your business, you should learn more about their technical specifications. For example, you need to research which type to get and how powerful to make it.

Follow along for a quick rundown on some specs that will hopefully help you decide which flash drive to buy.

Storage Size

Custom flash drives are available in a wide range of storage sizes. You can go for the most basic 128MB option, or upgrade to a 32GB one. It all depends on your budget and on what the intended use of the flash drive would be.

To give you some context, you can store roughly 10,000 documents on a 1GB flash drive. On the 16GB version, that number goes up to 160,000. This is assuming your documents are approximately 100KB in size.

Speeds

There are two common versions of flash drives: USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. The latter is the current, updated version. It has significantly faster speeds of data upload and download than its older brother.

Most flash drives on the market are USB 2.0. However, it’s important to check with your custom flash drive provider to make sure you’re getting the newest, fastest version.

Quality

A flash drive is only as good as its internal structure. Finding one with a great memory chip is essential. You’ll want to look for grade-A manufacturers, such as Intel, Samsung, Micron, and Hynix.

Next, you’ll want to make sure that the materials being used on the outward casing are durable. Opt for metallic key rings instead of plastic ones.

Design

Keeping a flash drive in a safe place can be a challenge for a lot of people. Many will lose their USB within a few weeks of having it. Making a small hole at one end for a keyring is an easy but incredibly useful feature to add to your custom flash drive.

It is also very smart to add a small LED to indicate when the flash drive is in use. It should turn off as soon as the USB is ejected from the computer, even if it remains plugged in.

Data Services

If you intend to use your custom flash drive for marketing purposes, there are so many things your supplier can do for you before you even receive your order.

First off, they can preload data onto each flash drive. This could be anything from a presentation, a brochure, or even a video.

They can also enable USB Auto Run, which will automatically open preloaded data when the flash drive is plugged into a computer. This will make sure that whoever uses your custom flash drive will access the material you deliberately placed in it.

If you want to place a USB order for your office, it might also be smart to add the File Lock feature. It prevents files from being accidentally deleted. This is a great feature for contracts, special client files, and other materials that you don’t want to lose.

Wrapping Up

Now that you’ve learned about all the cool tech aspects of flash drives, get excited to design your own!

The sky is the limit with these. You can make them into the shape of an American football, as slim as a credit card, or even embed them into a pen.

Whatever you decide will be a great step forward for your business. If you still need help designing your custom flash drive, contact us.

We’d be happy to point you in the right direction.