Be Excellent To Each Other

One for the IT bods I suppose.

How many names have you heard to describe small, keyring sized USB storage devices?

I just heard a new one: InfoStick

Someone at my work regularly calls them pendrives.

I think this name is silly.

dongle

Shrubrockets

This annoys me. Dongles always have pass-through ports on, so if you thumbdrive doesn't have a female USB port, it's not a dongle.

I usually go with "thumbdrive". It annoys me, actually, that they don't have a standard name.

Pendrive is the most common one I hear. The amount of people who have no idea what to call them is amazing.

"Hi, I've jump put my thumb, pen, USB, thingy, Jumpdrive in the computer and it's got an VIRUS! YOU DID IT!"

I usually just say USB and they know what you mean.... although its not actually a usb...blah blah blah..

I call them "Memory Sticks" or, equally wrongly, "USB drives".

DISAGREE - it always has a way of passing on communication to another external device yes, but not necessarily a physical port. Hence 'bluetooth dongle'.

Thumbstick
Thumbdrive
Pendrive
USB Stick

We block use of them, anyway.

'Dongle' gets used a lot here too, but to refer to USB drives and also the USB mobile broadband sticks too. In fact, if they don't know what something's called, it's a dongle.

They are USB dongles, just without a phyical connection (they have a wireless one instead, like a WiFi dongle or a bluetooth dongle).

[edit]Like what Craster said.

Also: Dongle is a fucking stupid word.

USB mobile breadstick is what I call it.

GovernmentDatabaseTimebombJustWaitingToGetLeftOnATrain

A guy I work with must have misheard this one day, as he insists on calling them 'fundrives'.

Depends on what files are on them. Or where you keep them.

Here most people call them "Pen's" or exceptionally "Pen Drives" or "Memory Stick"

I remember one girl callin it "SLB Drive" (and not on purpose). SLB are the initials for the Benfica football club (Sport Lisboa e Benfica)

I call them Memory Sticks or Flash Drives.

I've got a 16giger!

Geek Sticks

See: Star Wars Kid

Flash drives, generally.

I just call them "USB stick".

OK, own up - which of you vandalised the Wikipedia page for Dongle with: "A 'dongle' is a small piece of nice, tasty, completely excellent thing" ?

They are flash, they are drives, they are usb.

USB flash drives. Not a dongle for the above reason. Not a pen, thumb or such any more than they are a gazelle. And anyone who calls them memory sticks is welcome to buy a Memory Stick compatible device and see if it fits.

It's not a 'drive' though, is it? And it's not flash, it's flash memory.

Really? The first thing I encountered that I thought of as a dongle was the copy protection device that came with Leaderboard on the Amiga, which annoyingly had to be plugged into the joystick port (the game was played with the mouse) before you loaded it. That didn't have a pass-through port, but I'd say it was still a dongle.

Doesn't that blur the boundary between RAM and non-volatile storage though?

I call them "It's in the bottom of my rucksack, somewhere"

USB key.

You see? That's what makes my job harder, no set name. There should be a decree passed down from, ooh Jeebus or someone that they are called "[insert name here]" and that's that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7949018.stm

I posted that earlier in t'week Evidence that it should be a finger drive.

ah i hadn't noticed. That guy is mental, imagine walking off and leaving your finger in computer!! I'd get the fright of my life if i was the next one to use it.

I can't bear to look at it being peeled back. Makes me queasy.

just the phrase 'peeled back' in that context is making me feel queasy never mind looking at it...gadz!

Seems fair.

I now decree they are called "PazSmells"

YOU ESS BEE MASS STORAGE DEVISE.

OMG That's what I thought you said FTFY

Malc

Seconded! No... wait!