5 helpful issues I am going to by no means delete from my trusty USB stick

Again earlier than the times of cloud-based storage suppliers and miniature exterior SSDs, I, like most others round me, relied on the common-or-garden USB stick to hold my digital information from side to side.

Whereas USB flash drives proceed to be accessible available on the market in 2025, their heyday has lengthy since receded into the annals of tech historical past. With this in thoughts, family and friends are perplexed that I proceed to hold round a singular USB stick in my backpack to this very day.

The explanation for this quirky, enigmatic habits of mine? Because it seems, USB sticks are the proper antidote to right this moment’s always-connected world of digital dopamine and big-tech over-dependency. Thumb drives are compact, inexpensive, offline-friendly, and extremely malleable.

Listed below are 5 surprising issues I at all times carry round with me on a devoted USB stick, and that I do not plan on eradicating from my every day carry anytime quickly.

Retro ROM recordsdata

Nostalgic leisure that hardly takes up any house

The great thing about old-school video video games is that they hardly take up any house. The typical Atari 2600 ROM file, for instance, ranges wherever from 4KB to 64KB, which is to say that 1000’s of those retro games may be packed right into a drive with out making a dent in accessible storage capability. The identical goes for arcade ROMs, and even house online game consoles via till roughly the fifth or sixth era of {hardware} platforms.

I discover most fashionable mobile games to be distracting, with their commercials, their pay-to-play monetization schemes, their reliance on an energetic web connection, and their concentrate on exploitative gameplay loops. To avoid this, whereas additionally guaranteeing I obtain a gradual provide of nostalgia within the course of, I at all times carry a library of retro gaming ROMs on my USB stick (in addition to a couple of backups of PC and Android emulator program installers for good measure).

A survival information

For if and when the web goes down

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In right this moment’s internet-powered data age, we take it with no consideration that we will inquire for particulars and how-tos on absolutely anything and every thing underneath the solar with out lifting a finger. This democratization of data is barely accelerating with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and enormous language fashions (LLMs), nevertheless it has an Achilles’ Heal: its wholehearted reliance on the World Large Net.

Whereas extraordinarily unlikely, it is at all times a chance that web connectivity might be misplaced on account of pure disasters, malicious actors, geopolitical disputes, and even complete warfare. As such, I’ve taken the precaution of downloading a compilation of survival information PDF recordsdata onto my private USB flash drive, to align with the clever mantra of “anticipate the perfect and put together for the worst.”

A First Help information

A possible lifesaver when in a pinch

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Offline survival guides aren’t the one factor I insist on carrying round with me: in the identical vein, I’ve additionally gone forward and stashed my USB thumb drive with a set of First Help guides and assets. Whereas unlikely to ever be wanted, I can sleep soundly at evening figuring out that I carry with me archival information of how one can deal with wounds, the sorts of medicines that work together poorly with others, and extra.

Moreover, my USB stick carries with it a devoted medical data doc with specifics alone well being standing. Medical ID is a characteristic built into modern mobile operating systems like iOS, iPadOS, and Android, however having a secondary backup accessible on a flash drive provides that little little bit of extra reassurance that I am notably keen on.

A bootable OS installer

An remoted setting to work from

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Talking of working techniques, USB thumb drives are the perfect medium for carrying round bootable set up media. Microsoft offers its own Home windows 11 installer within the type of a Media Creation Instrument executable, however I are likely to favor the third-party Tiny11 for its smaller, bloat-free construct of the desktop OS. Alternatively, numerous Linux distributions (distros) provide free and open-source computing environments that may be loaded up by way of a bootable USB drive, together with common choices like Ubuntu, Mint, and Debian.

There are a number of the reason why somebody would possibly need to carry round a bootable USB drive. For me personally, as a lover of all issues know-how and software program, I merely prefer to mess around with new Linux distros and other OS images for the enjoyable of it with out having to leap via the hoops of dual-booting my PC.

Do not depend on server-side providers

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Lastly, positioned domestically on my private USB stick is an emergency contacts doc, saved as a textual content file (.txt) for optimum compatibility throughout numerous working techniques and platforms. Apart from normal emergency providers numbers, my doc consists of contact cellphone numbers of shut relations, in addition to some extra assets like native taxi firms, locksmiths, and numerous important service suppliers.

The very fact of the matter is that, on account of our modern-day reliance on smartphones, most of us hardly bear in mind cellphone numbers by coronary heart anymore. The issue is that almost all of us save our contacts by way of the cloud, which ends up in privateness issues, safety vulnerabilities, and the opportunity of by chance being locked out of an account and shedding entry outright. Having cellphone numbers archived on my USB stick may appear superfluous on the floor, nevertheless it simply would possibly come in useful in the future, and I might relatively be protected than sorry.