How Long Do Flash Drives Last? - Comments Page 2

Lexar's flash drives are a joke. Bought a 4 gig one yesterday..moved files onto it...it kept shutting off while plugged in and I have just lost a file.(get the "cannot read file..corrupt.unreadable message)

I am NOT happy with Lexar at the moment.

I have used a Lexar for several years now. It is not used every day and not used for backup. I don't trust flash drives yet for my "True" backups. I just recently bought a 4gig Lexar because of my experiences and my sister's experiences with them.

My 8 gb flash drive just quit working on me. I have pictures, music and documents on there and have never rewritten anything on it, but just all of a sudden, it stopped working. I went to plug it in and nothing came up. Tried plugging it into another computer and still nothing. Does this mean that it is no longer any good, or is there some other way to get my information off of this flash drive??

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's hard to tell if the problem is with the storage medium, or the USB connector. If wiggling the connector and re-inserting it doesn't fix it, then you'll have to consider a data recovery service.

Thank you for a very informative little article. I was fascinated to know the "hows" and "whys" concerning the life span of these amazing little devices. As to the durability of the drives, I can only say that my daughter has a SANDISK Cruiser flash which has, over time, taken no less than THREE trips through the laundry machine (a front-load unit with a 1200RPM final spin cycle!) and the drier - and still held the data stored on it! One day, when the prices drop to a level similar to that of standard internal disk drives, I'll be replacing my C drive with a solid-state flash unit. Right now, they are a bit too steep for my budget. I found mention of a 1000GB internal flash unit for $3800.

Anyway, thanks again for your great words.
T

Tried to get the H2testw to download and work; however, I can't get it to do anything. Is this not functional for Windows 7 (64)? Sounds like a great program if I can make it work.

I have some very nice old family photos I am scanning and want to back up. I already had one CD fail! I couldn't believe it -- none of the data was readable. But the originals on the hard disk are still there, so I'll try again. Is a memory stick safer, and longer lasting? Thanks

Thanks for the article on Flash drives. However, I was looking for the answer to a related question. In thumbing through my Car Users Manual it cautions about leaving the USB Flash Drive plugged in when Starting the car and even when shutting it off. They indicate that because of the delicate nature of a Flash drive it can draw too much current and be destroyed. Is there a real danger of "Frying" the Flash Drive or is that possibility really very remote? Thanks for your comments.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If it were me, I'd err on the side of caution.

I heard somewhere that within 10 years from now all storage devices will be done away with and everything will be paid storage on line.

hi.there I have comatose 64 with 64 kb storage still runs on flash today

Okay, so if a flash drive's longevity is how many times data is written to a particular storage block, then is there a utility that can count the number of times data is written, subtracted by the planned life -- thus giving an estimate of remaining useful life of the flash drive?

In reply to Kathy, the college teacher who says her students quite often say they lost their work due to their flash drives suddenly dying. It may be that "My flash drive died" is the new "My dog ate my homework".