How to Transfer Data From One Flash Drive to Another

By Dean Lee

Typical Flash Drive
i usb flash drive image by Bosko Martinovic from Fotolia.com

Flash drives are portable hard drives that allow for large amounts of data (often several gigabytes) to be transferred quickly and conveniently. Flash drives have no moving parts and therefore can access data quickly, though this is limited by the speed of the USB capabilities of both the drive and the port being used. Transferring from one flash drive to another can be easy, but it should be noted that the flash drive that the data is being transferred to should have enough free memory to store all of the data.

Transferring Data Between Flash Drives

Step 1

Plug both drives into the open USB drives of the computer.

Step 2

Plugging in the drives will often cause the computer to open up the drives automatically. If it does not, navigate to the flash drives (in My Computer in Windows and on the desktop in Mac) and open a window for each.

Step 3

In the window for the flash drive with the data being transferred, highlight all of the desired data.

Step 4

Drag the data and drop it in the window of the empty/new drive. Alternatively, right-click after highlighting the data, then click "Copy." In the window for the empty/new drive, right click and press "Paste."

Step 5

Eject the drives using the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in Windows or in Mac, right clicking on the drive and clicking "Eject Untitled," where "Untitled" can be whatever the name of the drive is.

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