Small wonders: the 2009 Ars USB flash drive roundup Since our last roundup in 2005, USB flash drives have become ubiquitous. So ubiquitous, in fact, that we wondered whether there was any difference at all among models. In our 2009 roundup, we find out the answer.

If you look at the SSD market today, you’d assume that it’s very different from what it was just six months ago when the X25-M launched. People are worried that the Intel drive has issues with degrading performance over time. Some vendors are now shipping “revised” JMicron drives with multiple controllers, supposedly fixing all of the problems I talked about last year. I hate to break it to you guys. As different as the world may seem today, it’s all very much the same. The Intel drive is still the best of the best. Yes, it, and other SSDs do get slower over time and later in this article I’ll explain why it happens and why it’s not as big of a deal as you’d think. The issues I complained about with the JMicron drives from last year are still alive and well today; they’re just somewhat occluded.

That 16GB SDHC card that provides extra storage for your netbook not doing it for you? Not to worry. The SD Association has announced a new specification for SDXC cards, with the XC standing for extended capacity. The new cards will support up to 2TB of storage, and will have higher bus speeds which means faster transfers.

Researchers at HP Labs have built the first working prototypes of an important new electronic component that may lead to instant-on PCs as well as analog computers that process information the way the human brain does.

Assigning a permanent drive letter to an external USB drive / flash drive / memory stick in Windows XP