How long does a decent USB stick last?
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The very first USB stick I bought was 32MB and I thought that was a lot cause it held way more than a floppy.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Mine was 64 and thought i found gold when I found a lost 256mb. Think I paid about $100 ircc. Had been using 100mb zip drives before usbs.
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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.
If you're going to use it regularly, get a few and sync them together once week or so. Or sync to cloud. Or sync to a folder on your PC. They usually last awhile, biggest issue is losing them.
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Using it for a write few read many style system
What does this even mean?
It's referencing the type of operation being done on the drive. A write operation being changing the information on the drive, a read operation being reading something from the drive. A write few read many indicates that most operations on the device are read operations/not changing the data on the device. Some examples of this would be a thumb drive being used for presentations or being used as a source to copy files to another system. These setups are fairly low write count when compared to read count. An example of a write many read many would be using the drive as a swap drive, or as an OS drive such as tails where the intent would be keeping the OS on the drive instead of just copying it to make the actual file system
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4GBThe first usb stick I bought more than 15 years ago, still works.
I have this exact same USB drive, 4GB also bought around 15 years ago it still works like a charm
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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.
I can't say what is the usual failure rate as my drives fail in like 3 months or years but dont buy kingston datatravel 3.0 both died in a month and one of the replacements died in one month, and the second one is still going. They were used to transfer some files beetween computers and as ventoy drives for when windows breaks or I break my current distro.
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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.
Really depends. what manufacturer, price, how often they're used and type (type A, type C, micro USB, etc). I've had some still work after a decade, others have suddenly failed months after I bought them
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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.
in my experience they last as long as you can keep track of them, and, as long as the storage offered is congruent with your needs. I found a 16mb usb drive the other day. It still functions but I can't think of what I'd use it for in this age, I have flac songs that are larger than the drive lol
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Using it for a write few read many style system
What does this even mean?
I read it as occasional use on any os. If you have a Raspberry Pi running 24/7 and it's constantly whacking that memory stick with read / writes it's going to die faster than the USB stick you use to install Linux twice a year
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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]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.
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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.
I'd never trust a USB stick with my only copy of anything I care about. They get dropped, stepped on, accidentally dropped into vats of hydrofluoric acid, etc. Doesn't matter how long it can theoretically last if its USB jack gets bent and becomes detached from the PCB.
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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.
You mean 3.2g2 speeds
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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?
