How long does a decent USB stick last?
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You mean 3.2g2 speeds
Sure, whatever nerd.
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I'm thinking about getting one for several purposes, primarily for portable software, some certificates and keys, and a few backups. Since it won't be powered off for more than a few days or weeks and won't experience heavy writing (although I plan to use Veracrypt and that may cause some stress)
How long can I expect it to last? Obviously there will be backups, but I also don't want to lose anything on it as much as possible.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Not long enough is the true answer.
If they just sit around on a shelf, they'll still slowly lose charge until one day the data just isn't readable. If they're on a keychain, I haven't had one last for more than two years, and I don't get my keys wet or anything.
Even if you take great care, the data will still slowly corrupt because of how nand flash works. Unless you're rewriting all data every couple years, never getting it wet or exposing it to much, etc, they'll all fail sooner than you'd ever hope.
That's on top of any chance at physical damage. I wouldn't trust any modern thumbdrive beyond an immediate need to carry data from one place to another.
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The secret nerd technique they don't want you to know is to get a big usb stick housing for a proper m.2 SSD stick. Form wise its a slightly chunkier usb stick. Inside is a proper drive you can buy from a reputable source with terrabytes of storage and 3.0 speeds. A reputable SSD drive will easily last a decade.
As far as store bought regular old sandisk will last a long long time.
Really wish that's an option since I have m.2 lying around but it's not really pocket edc material.
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I'm thinking about getting one for several purposes, primarily for portable software, some certificates and keys, and a few backups. Since it won't be powered off for more than a few days or weeks and won't experience heavy writing (although I plan to use Veracrypt and that may cause some stress)
How long can I expect it to last? Obviously there will be backups, but I also don't want to lose anything on it as much as possible.
It seems to be a huge lottery. I’ve only had one or two fail but that was like 2008. Supposedly there is some sort of data rot or failure rate but I’ve never experienced it. Seems highly random
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Really wish that's an option since I have m.2 lying around but it's not really pocket edc material.
https://www.amazon.com/ELUTENG-Enclosure-Protocol-Adapter-External/dp/B08H22BV1N
There are dozens like this in all sorts of tech stores. Definitely bigger than a usb driver but not THAT much bigger -
I'm thinking about getting one for several purposes, primarily for portable software, some certificates and keys, and a few backups. Since it won't be powered off for more than a few days or weeks and won't experience heavy writing (although I plan to use Veracrypt and that may cause some stress)
How long can I expect it to last? Obviously there will be backups, but I also don't want to lose anything on it as much as possible.
Buy one with square USB on one end, USB-C on the other, then if one fails you still have the other interface. The more reputable companies are better in this market. $17 should get you 128gb here
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https://www.amazon.com/ELUTENG-Enclosure-Protocol-Adapter-External/dp/B08H22BV1N
There are dozens like this in all sorts of tech stores. Definitely bigger than a usb driver but not THAT much biggeryou can also get enclosures for 2230 drives. Pretty small at that point.
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Sure, whatever nerd.
If you don't understand the difference between 3.0 and 3.2g2, then using an m.2 enclosure is purely meaningless to you as well.
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Buy one with square USB on one end, USB-C on the other, then if one fails you still have the other interface. The more reputable companies are better in this market. $17 should get you 128gb here
Not knocking cause I have one of these myself, but if a drive fails, isn't it more likely because of the flash storage instead of the USB interface?
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Not knocking cause I have one of these myself, but if a drive fails, isn't it more likely because of the flash storage instead of the USB interface?
Depends how much you use it. I work in IT and plug my thumb drive in multiple times per day. In the past, most of my failures have been physical failures where the drive and the USB connection physically separate, or the USB connector just breaks. I have rarely encountered flash storage failures but I don't just put them in drawers for years, they get used a lot.
