How Do You Know You Are Getting Quality Memory?

Quality Matters. Ask anyone who has purchased a USB Flash Drive.

Over 80% of the flash memory manufactured is “downgraded” from its original intended use.These downgraded flash memory chips end up in a variety of consumer electronics including mobile phones, cable boxes, GPS navigation systems, toys – and even many USB Flash Drives.

Downgraded memory modules were manufactured by top tier manufacturers such as Samsung, Hynix, Toshiba, Intel, Micron and others but did not pass their rigorous quality control standards and therefore could not be certified and labeled under their own prestigious brand name.This memory they manufacturer can legally be sold to be placed inside, for example, a children’s toy, Hallmark gift card or mobile phone and work perfectly fine without any problems.

These Downgraded Memory chips find their way into USB Flash Drives more often given the nature and trading of the memory market in the Far East.  It is hard to control what happens to the memory after it leaves the manufacturing plant in Asia.

A USB Flash Drive is an electronic device that stores your valuable information. In Downgraded Memory that does not pass the quality control specifications of the original brand name manufacturer, a 1GB chip might only store 987MB of data instead of the full 1024MB of data.  This might be OK in a GPS unit that only needs to store no more than 700-800MB of data, but not in your USB Flash Drive you expect to hold a full gigabyte, or 1024 megabytes of data.

Some companies will even use a much lower capacity drive, such as a 512MB drive and reprogram the controller to display 1GB of data.  This is the worst case scenario that causes factories and trading companies to lose trust in the overall market.

On top of all this, when you plug your USB drive into a computer, it will register in the computer as 1GB or 1024MB but in reality it will not be able to store more than the amount that it was “downgraded” to because the memory module was supposed to hold 1024MB when it was manufactured.  In the above example, your drive will show a full 1GB but imagine only being able to store 512MB of data!

Many promotional companies do not have the control over where their out-sourced factories procure their memory modules from, therefore causing companies to buy the “cheapest” memory out there on the market instead of quality, brand-name and certified memory modules.

Unfortunately, by looking at the product on the outside you will not be able to tell what is inside.  Even the computer will register the full amount of memory it was originally manufactured to hold.  The only way to tell if the memory module is original or downgraded is by buying directly from the source – the manufacturer of the memory chips.

Look for a USB company who owns their own factory and that purchases directly from the manufacturer or their authorized component distributor directly. Find one who buys from the same manufacturers  major consumer flash-memory based companies purchase their memory from, including Apple, SanDisk, Lexar, Kingston, and many other electronic companies that manufacturer memory cards to such a high quality standard.

By selecting this type of USB company to purchase from, you will get the absolute highest quality USB drives with no downgraded/degraded memory or components. http://www.usbpromos.com/

Printing Process on USB Drives

Due to the different materials USB drives are manufactured from, choosing a printing process is a very important decision when placing an order.  USB drives are usually encased in a plastic or metal shell.  Some uncommon materials USB drives can be housed in are rubber, PVC, leather or even wood.  This coupled with the different printing methods can yield a large number of possible combinations.   The most common printing methods are as follows:

Screen Printing

Pad Printing

4 Color Process Printing

Laser Etching

Hot Stamping

Foil Stamping

Screen Printing is a technique that yields very crisp edges and vibrant colors.  The screen ink used bonds very well with all housing materials.  A photosensitive screen is exposed to light with the logo design masked off, which allows the use of a squeegee to stencil the design on the USB drive.  The screen ink when dry is opaque; this method of printing works well with any colored drive.  However, if your logo or design has ANY gradients or halftones, you cannot use this method of printing unless you remove all shading.  Screen printing USB drives is a very cost effective way of branding an otherwise generic USB drive.

Pad Printing is a technique similar to screen printing.  A custom pad with an inverted instance of the logo / design is created.  This pad is then used to ‘stamp’ the USB drive after having the ink applied.  Again this method is very well suited to all housing materials.  And just like screen printing, this method is incompatible with gradients or halftones.

4 Color Process Printing is a printing method which lends itself well to any complex images / designs.  This printing method is very much akin to an inkjet printer.  The USB drives are placed on the print stage, and a precision print head prints directly on the drives.  Unlike Screen Printing or Pad Printing, 4 Color Process Printing is only accurate when printed on white USB drives.  This printing process is able to capture gradients and halftones, as the ink isn’t opaque.  This printing method works on plastic and metal drives that are coated white.

Laser Etching is technically not a printing method.  The metal specific procedure vaporizes the surface layer of the USB drive, leaving a raw metal finish to the applied surface.  This procedure works very well on anodized aluminum, as the anodized color contrasts well with the raw aluminum.  It should be noted that since Laser Etching is a treatment rather than a print process, any laser etched images / designs are very permanent, and will not scratch off easily.

Hot Stamping is a leather specific procedure.  An aluminum block is machined with the image / graphic ‘embossed’ on the stamp.  It is then heated and applied with pressure to the USB drive.  This procedure alters the USB drive housing and is also very permanent. 

Foil Stamping is a variation on Hot Stamping, where a metallic foil is pressed into the surface of the drive, much like a hot stamp.  The effect is a metallic foil reliefed into the leather surface.