USB Flash Drive

M-Systems, founded in Kfar Saba in 1989 by Dov Moran and Aryeh Mergi, specialized in flash storage. In 1998–1999 Moran, together with engineers Amir Ban and Oron Ogdan, developed a small device that plugged into a computer's USB port and appeared as an ordinary disk; the patent application was filed in April 1999. Marketed as the DiskOnKey, it first went on sale in 2000 through IBM in an 8 MB version, about the capacity of five floppy disks.

Rival claims come from Singapore's Trek 2000, whose ThumbDrive also appeared in 2000, and China's Netac, both holding early patents, so credit for the "first" USB drive is disputed. What is clear is that the DiskOnKey helped make pocket flash storage universal and finished off the floppy disk. SanDisk bought M-Systems in 2006 for about $1.6 billion, and Moran became a prominent figure in Israel's startup world.