USB Flash drive lifespan of data ?

Fif23 · Feb 25, 2018

Hey there ! I was wondering if there is a difference in the reliability of the data cells on USB flash drives that use conventional chips, vs the ones that use "MLC" chips. For example, Sandisk Ultra, vs Corsair GS Voyager.
And beyond that, those with the actual SSD controllers such as the Corsair GTX, are they even more reliable ?

I always buy those 15 dollar Kingston ones and more than 5 of them were already ruined after 2 years of writing and reading. If I invest 100-150$ in a good MLC component flash USB, will they hold for much more than a couple years or is it a waste of money ?

FordGT90Concept · Feb 26, 2018

It's the writing that damages them. As long as there aren't many writes, the data should last indefinitely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Write_endurance
SLC is apparently the most durable. NOR is more durable than NAND. NOR capacity is low though and so is its performance.

Maybe want to consider portable HDDs? You must be subjecting them to a lot of writes.

eidairaman1 · Feb 26, 2018

Best bet, double or triple redundant backup

jboydgolfer · Feb 26, 2018

I have ROMs from years ago for the kids nintendo DS. that's got to be close to 15 years ago that I put the data on those drives. As mentioned however, use equals wear

Solaris17 · Feb 26, 2018

I run a fleet of corsair GTX drives with live environments for my technicnans. They were instated jan of last year. They get brutalized with reads and writes I have the environment automatically TRIM the drives and have not had a failure yet.

I also ran over one of them with several cars for testing and I use it to this day as my engineering drive. its currently right next to me.

Fif23 · Feb 26, 2018

eidairaman1 do you have experience with Mdisc ?

Sasqui · Feb 26, 2018

Fif23 said:
Mdisc

There was a dicsussion here about Mdiscs a while back. I googled and here's PC Worlds take: https://www.pcworld.com/article/293...ewed-your-data-good-for-a-thousand-years.html

BTW, They seem to have stolen TPU's moniker logo!

Anyway... regarding the life of a flash drive is also dependent on the quality... and like @FordGT90Concept mentioned the specific flash tech. I've had a cheap USB drive literally start smoking when it was plugged in. No damage to the USB port or PC thankfully.

FordGT90Concept · Feb 27, 2018

Yeah, PC World was like that for a while and it drives me nuts. It's hard to tell TPU from PC World now. :cry:

qubit · Feb 27, 2018

Solaris17 said:
I run a fleet of corsair GTX drives with live environments for my technicnans. They were instated jan of last year. They get brutalized with reads and writes I have the environment automatically TRIM the drives and have not had a failure yet.

I also ran over one of them with several cars for testing and I use it to this day as my engineering drive. its currently right next to me.

That's a baptism of fire!

I had one of their high performance drives too, until I lost it some time back. :laugh:

jboydgolfer · Feb 27, 2018

Solaris17 said:
I also ran over one of them with several cars for testing and I use it to this day

Solaris17 · Feb 27, 2018

qubit said:
That's a baptism of fire!

I had one of their high performance drives too, until I lost it some time back.

jboydgolfer said:

Sedans mostly.

Toyota Matrix, Acura RSX and a 2500HD they really are tanks. The sides held on by some kind of epoxy.

The tools are imaged. So when a drive "breaks" (via software install etc (they are live environments)) instead of fixing the drive its encouraged to simply image it back. so the drives take LOTS of data. the image write is atleast 18GB.

Here you go.

I am not embellishing when I say the drives are used ALOT, though im not 100% sure that reading is correct. will double check tomorrow.

Thats my engineering drive though. my techs drives have far more power on and hour counts.

Jetster · Feb 27, 2018

flash memory is not meant for back up

Jesus the Voyager GTX is not cheap. Solaris17 you a hand model on the side?

xkm1948 · Feb 27, 2018

I have a Kingston drive from ~12 yrs ago. Still going strong.

Now we are on this topic. Does anyone know any particular app that scans USB flash drive for health report and etc?

Solaris17 · Feb 27, 2018

Jetster said:
flash memory is not meant for back up

Jesus the Voyager GTX is not cheap. Solaris17 you a hand model on the side?

For the right someone ill be whatever you want.

xkm1948 said:
I have a Kingston drive from ~12 yrs ago. Still going strong.

Now we are on this topic. Does anyone know any particular app that scans USB flash drive for health report and etc?

Depends entirely on the controller. However for basic drives you can try check flash

eidairaman1 · Feb 27, 2018

Fif23 said:
eidairaman1 do you have experience with Mdisc ?

I do not but @Sasqui gave a pretty good Link, very informative. I have a BDXL drive myself from 2014 by Pioneer, hopefully I can start using MDISKs along with DVDs and place them into vaccum pelican cases with dessicant packs and vaccum seal bags...

SamirD · Mar 10, 2018

I just read about Mdisks. Funny that this exists when Mitsui made 100year archive grade media decades ago. I have several of those disks still working fine.

delshay · Mar 10, 2018

eidairaman1 said:
I do not but @Sasqui gave a pretty good Link, very informative. I have a BDXL drive myself from 2014 by Pioneer, hopefully I can start using MDISKs along with DVDs and place them into vaccum pelican cases with dessicant packs and vaccum seal bags...

I have the latest Pioneer drive BDR-S11J-X imported from Japan. I also need to start doing back-ups on this drive, but currently all back-up is done on a Samsung 2TB drive internally connected to a USB port.

RejZoR · Mar 10, 2018

There is some NAND data retention issues if you don't ever plug it in for like 10+ years. But I don't know specifics, I just vaguely heard about it...

Glaring_Mistake · Mar 11, 2018

Solaris17 said:
Here you go.

I am not embellishing when I say the drives are used ALOT, though im not 100% sure that reading is correct. will double check tomorrow.

Thats my engineering drive though. my techs drives have far more power on and hour counts.

I think however that it might be like with my Corsair Voyager GTX that the drive reports writes in MB which CDI reports as writes in GB meaning that writes are hugely inflated in CDI.

Screenshot of my Voyager GTX's SMART:

As you can see it's supposedly seen more than 2PB of writes and that's despite the fact that I'm a consumer and that it isn't used very often.

verycharbroiled · Mar 30, 2018

ive put several of mine through the wash several times. still good, just let em dry out for a week or so.

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USB Flash drive lifespan of data ?

Fif23

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

jboydgolfer

Solaris17

Super Dainty Moderator

Fif23

Sasqui

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

jboydgolfer

Solaris17

Super Dainty Moderator

Jetster

xkm1948

Solaris17

Super Dainty Moderator

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

SamirD

delshay

RejZoR

Glaring_Mistake

verycharbroiled

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