M-Systems
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| Public | |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Fate | Acquired by SanDisk |
| Founded | Kfar Saba, Israel 1989 |
| Founder | Dov Moran |
| Defunct | November 19, 2006 |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Dov Moran, Founder |
| Products | DiskOnKey DiskOnChip |
M-Systems Ltd., (sometimes spelled msystems) was a Nasdaq-listed Israeli producer of flash memory storage products founded in 1989 by Dov Moran and based in Kfar Saba, Israel. They were best known for developing and patenting the first flash drive, marketed in 1995 as DiskOnChip, and the first USB flash drive, marketed in 2000 as DiskOnKey. They also created the patented True Flash Filing System (TrueFFS) which presented the flash memory as a disk drive to the computer. After 17 years of business, they were acquired by their prior competitor, SanDisk, in 2006. The DiskOnChip (DOC) was developed at the R&D Center established by M-Systems called EUROM. Rick Iorillo, Rony Levy and David Deitcher were the individuals that worked on the development and marketing of the first 2 MB DOC. This product went on to receive the Most Innovative Award from EDN in 1995 and later went on to become the Flash Drive and DiskOnKey.
DiskOnKey was a small Flash memory device encased in a plastic enclosure with an integrated flash controller that connected to the USB port on a computer. It required no separate power or device drivers from the computer if running Windows 2000, or Windows ME; it was a true plug and play device. In Windows 98 it required a driver which was supplied on a CD-ROM. The computer saw the device as a hard disk drive and it came in capacities of 8, 16, and 32 MB. It was marketed as a hard disk on a keychain. It had an integrated LED which indicated when the device was reading or writing data to prevent premature removal from the computer. The performance was about 10 times faster than writing data to a floppy drive.
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