How Long Do Flash Drives Last? - Comments Page 1

I have one that is 6 years old 512mb. It has been washed several times, dropped, the case has broken when it was stepped on...it still works. The one I use the most now is 4gb and is about 2 years old and works perfectly. At 55, I'm sure it's memory will outlive mine...as a matter of fact it has already started. http://DoubleClicks.info

"...are flash drives as safe as other mass storage media for long-term archiving of irreplaceable data?"

I wouldn't have thought that a flash drive was a suitable medium for long-term archives. An external hard-drive or DVD must be much more cost-effective.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Probably not as cost-effective, but from the perspective of data persistence, it might be a better choice than a non-flash hard drive or DVD. And it fits in your pocket.

My problem with flash drives is that the usb conector would always break where it goes into the plastic. At first it would have trouble connecting to the computer and I would have to jiggle it to make a connection and finaly it just wouldn't make the connection.

I bought an Iron Key flash drive and this solved the problem. It is a little pricey compared to standard flash drives but it is worth it. I would go through a flash drive every 4 months.

The iron Key flash drive is almost bullet proof.

When my college students started using flash drives a few years ago, I noticed that the flash drives would appear to "go bad" for no obvious reason and students would lose their work. I suspect that these students may have been yanking the drives out of the USB ports without going through the standard Windows "Safely Remove Hardware" step. I further suspect that even that isn't a problem as long as the drive isn't being accessed at the instant it is yanked, since I've successfully removed drives that Windows would refuse to release as "safe to remove." Any thoughts?

I don't encounter as many student issues as I did at first, so are my students getting smarter or are the flash drives now more durable? (In the days of floppies, even the 3.5 inch diskettes - may they rest in peace - students would constantly ruin theirs, while I rarely had a problem!)

You might also mention not to buy cheap blank CD's or DVD's. I lost my collection of over 1500+ movies that I had on the cheapest blank DVD's that I could find, even after less then 2 years of writing the data.

If it's important enough to save its important enough to store the data on media that will retain it for a life time, or until erased.

Does having a name brand really matter? Everything comes out of the same China factory.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not true. All IronKey devices, for example, are designed and manufactured in the USA.

I have several flash drives going back several years, with one of my first ones being a 32MB drive. I have a Memorex TravelDrive 4GB that went through the washer and dryer. It was hot to the touch, so I let it cool down and then plugged it in. Didn't lose anything and am still using it.

I know this Article is about Flash Drive Life. But I think it would have been worthwhile to mention that autorun.inf files in Flash Drives are the major source of spreading malware in Windows PCs (Vista & Win7 have been quite a lot customized to handle that, but still..)

Ravi.

What company made the flash drive robot guy in the illustration?? I'd like one like that!

I have a Kington DataTraveler 2GB flash drive. I tried to open my and it shows "Removable Disk"....under the name drive G and it won't work, I tried it on another computer and it won't open on that one either. There is a message that pops up saying, please insert a disc in drive G:., PLEASE HELP ME SOLVE THIS PROBLEM

To Adolph - who has the issues with the USB part breaking near the case. Some SanDisk models retract the connector into the case, when not in use. That shouldn't break unless you thump it when it is connected to the PC.

I've owned multiple flash drives and have had two name brand flash drives crash and I've lost hours of work (weeks in one case).

In both cases, each flash drive had over a year warranty -- one was a lifetime warranty although it was a first generation, but I didn't trust it a second time.

I don't abuse my flash drives, but both of them have quit without any warning. One quit in the middle of a save and the other quit when I tried to open a file.

Is there a way to recover the photos on a memory card accidentally "erased"? On a Mac?
TIA, GD

My flash drives rarely last more than 6 months.
I use them several times a day. The most common failure is data corruption. The next most common failure is that the drive is no longer recognized by the computer.

I have tried many brands. My advice is to never use a flash drive to store data more than temporarily. Needless to say, I store data on at least 2 of them if I care about it.

Does frequent unplugging of USB flashdrives without using the "Safely Remove.." windows feature shorten its life ?

I have 2 2GB flash drives that have suddenly decided they are write protected. There are no external switches on them and they have only been removed using the safely remove button on XP. Any suggestions? The manufacturers have been no help at all.

I also had associates and clients complain that their DOK's died on them after a short while. Sometimes I could pin it down to their having placed the DOK with their loose change. Now Nickels are made of nickel, a magnetic material. Soemtimes they've become magnetized or the carrier walked by a motor or transformer and made it history.

But sometimes, it has no obvious reason. I suspect it is a faulty USB port that zapped the DOK. This obvious when you hear a zzzzt sound or even see a spark when the DOK is plugged in. Why that occurs and which motherboards do it more often is another issue.

One of the most important parts of a flash drive is the File Allocation Table (FAT). This is a predefined area of storage that keeps track of where files are located on the drive. It is accessed every time your read from or write to the drive so it gets the most use. If the FAT becomes corrupted, you won't be able to access the data even though it's still there. See the Wikipedia article on flash drives for more information.

There are some flash drive recovery utilities that will recover/retrieve your data. Some utilities are pretty basic: they (mostly) recover the data but not the file name. So you end up with a bunch of files with names like file001.dat file002.dat, etc. Others will recover the file name and file type. I've used
http://www.datarecoverysoftware.com/ with good success (disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the company and found them by searching the web). Their software is not free.

The best protection--BACK UP YOUR FLASH DRIVE REGULARLY (at least once a week or more frequently if you make heavy use of it). Today's computers have plenty of disk space. Simply copy the entire flash drive to your main hard drive.

"Back up your flash drives regularly"? And exactly what, pray, do you do when the flash drive IS your backup...???

EDITOR'S NOTE: Three word answer: Backup your backup.

I've been using Imation 512MB flash drives to backup-store financial records since 2006, on one have only used 48.6MB so far and it works flawlessly.

I also have Imation 2GB drive which stores some downloaded program files - no prob's there either.

(My PC is a Gateway with three USB ports on the
front.)