flash drive

American  

Trademark, ThumbDrive, or flashdrive

noun

Computers.

1. a very small, portable, solid-state hard drive that can be inserted into a USB port for storage and retrieval of data.

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flash drive British  

noun

1. a pocket-sized portable computer hard drive and data storage device See also key drive pen drive thumb drive USB drive

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Etymology

Origin of flash drive

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Meanwhile, Sandisk released a 1-terabyte $128 USB-C flash drive so small you can just leave it plugged in.

From The Wall Street Journal

A year after being handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking he dispatched a documentary with the title "This is Not a Film" to the Cannes Festival on a flash drive stashed in a cake.

From Barron's

Unlike traditional means of protecting and storing wealth, like physical banks whose accounts are protected with sophisticated security measures, crypto holders carry immense, untraceable wealth by way of the passkeys to their crypto wallets, whether those are hosted online or stored within a flash drive.

From Slate

Last November, a former employee at a Chinese state agency was handed the death sentence after his USB work flash drive was allegedly seized by foreign spies and he became their "puppet", according to Chinese authorities.

From BBC

If you don’t want to haul a whole desktop PC with you, store copies of vital documents in the cloud or on a flash drive.

From Los Angeles Times