Groups > comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage > #1307

Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

From	"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Subject	Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
Date	2016-10-19 15:48 +1100
Message-ID	<e6oc9cFr8l9U1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References	<wMidnT3J4O0aoZjFnZ2dnUU7-InNnZ2d@earthlink.com> <nu5epg$3aq$1@dont-email.me> <191020160913063207%YourName@YourISP.com> <M9udnURjA45vCZvFnZ2dnUU7-WWdnZ2d@earthlink.com>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

Show all headers | View raw


"Ant" <ANTant@zimage.com> wrote in message 
news:M9udnURjA45vCZvFnZ2dnUU7-WWdnZ2d@earthlink.com...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Your Name <YourName@yourisp.com> 
> wrote:
>> In article <nu5epg$3aq$1@dont-email.me>, Doc O'Leary
>> <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> wrote:
>
>> > For your reference, records indicate that
>> > ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) wrote:
>> >
>> > > Either I'm having bad luck or USB flash drives suck even with various
>> > > sizes (e.g., 512 MB to 32 GB), well known brand names (e.g., 
>> > > SanDisk),
>> > > and cheap/free ones (SP [a few years] and Patriot [had it since
>> > > 10/3/2015]). They don't seems like they don't last longer than a 
>> > > year. I
>> > > keep them in my drawers, wallets, etc.
>> >
>> > Of course, anyone who remembers how unreliable floppy disks used to
>> > be would treasure a one year life span.
>
>> I can't say I've ever had any real problems with floppy disks. I've
>> still got a huge pile of them (some magazine cover disks, some my own
>> disks). In fact, the biggest issue I've ever had with floppy disks is
>> the drive in my beige G3 dying and I didn't have the time nor equipment
>> to fix it, so I got an external USB one instead.
>
>> A large part of the issue many people had with floppy disks is due to
>> the way they treated them. Mine were and are always stored in boxes,
>> never simply thrown into bags or pockets alone.
>
>> The same goes for USB flash drives. I've seen people treating them
>> extremely badly.
>
> Someone told me putting these tiny USB flash drives in my wallets that
> go into my pants' front pockets are breaking them due to stresses. What
> do you thnk of that?

I don't buy that, they are pretty rugged mechanically.

> I see people having them on keychains and they
> hit tables, desks, etc. hard and loudly a lot!

Yeah, don't buy that claim.

>> > I think, for the industry, flash drives are seen as the new floppy.  It
>> > doesn¹t much matter who you go with, they¹re all built to be 
>> > essentially
>> > disposable.
>> >
>> > That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so
>> > you¹d be getting some nifty free refreshes if you¹re seeing failures
>> > every year.  Personally, I just buy the MicroCenter store brand in
>> > whatever size $10 will get me, and it generally lasts until at least
>> > the warranty runs out.  It¹s not a huge expense, so I don¹t worry
>> > too much about it.
>
>> USB flash drives (thumb drive, keyring drives, pen drives, memory
>> sticks, whatever else you want to call them) and SSDs do have a limited
>> lifespan measured in the number of write cycles ... so using them
>> continuously (e.g. as an OS boot drive with things like virtual memory
>> going) as Ant said can be a bit silly and cause them to "wear out" much
>> sooner than simply using them to store files on for backup or
>> transport.
>> https://www.techwalla.com/articles/life-expectancy-of-a-usb-flash-drive
>> http://www.storagecraft.com/blog/data-storage-lifespan/
>> http://www.flashbay.co.nz/blog/usb-life-expectancy
>
> The weird part is that I was still installing mac OS Sierra v10.12
> on these two old USB flash drives. Is that too much already?

Yeah, much more likely that it was that that killed them.

> I only wanted to install and use the OS for quick tests like those
> bootable read only live discs for OSes. :( In the past, I used these
> USB flsah drives to copy all kinds of files (giant sizes too) to use
> between various computers.

> I love flash drives for being super tiny and light to stick into my
> wallet to carry easily! Argh.

Yeah, very convenient for some situations like that and moving
movies around like I do.

Back to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-17 16:03 -0500
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Mark Perkins <mark@none.invalid> - 2016-10-18 04:04 -0500
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 16:27 -0500
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> - 2016-10-18 15:23 +0000
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Happy.Hobo" <Happy.Hobo@Spam.Invalid> - 2016-10-18 12:13 -0500
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 16:28 -0500
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Happy.Hobo" <Happy.Hobo@Spam.Invalid> - 2016-10-19 00:15 -0500
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-19 17:40 -0500
            Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Happy.Hobo" <Happy.Hobo@Spam.Invalid> - 2016-10-19 17:52 -0500
              Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-19 18:11 -0500
              Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2016-10-20 04:19 +0000
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2016-10-19 09:13 +1300
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-18 21:15 +0000
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 16:51 -0500
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-18 17:52 -0400
            Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> - 2016-10-19 15:41 +0000
              Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-19 11:49 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-19 17:42 -0500
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-19 16:05 +1100
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 16:32 -0500
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2016-10-19 13:28 +1300
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-18 20:41 -0400
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-19 15:48 +1100
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-19 17:50 -0500
            Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-20 15:48 +1100
              Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-20 14:48 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-20 21:14 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-21 21:41 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-21 17:46 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-21 17:23 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-21 18:27 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-21 18:05 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-22 21:26 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-22 21:27 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-22 17:37 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2016-10-23 14:16 +1300
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-24 01:36 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-23 22:03 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-24 13:54 +1100
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> - 2016-10-24 15:52 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-24 21:01 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> - 2016-10-25 15:56 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-25 12:33 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> - 2016-10-26 17:34 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Happy.Hobo" <Happy.Hobo@Spam.Invalid> - 2016-10-26 13:59 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2016-10-27 00:13 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-26 23:19 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2016-10-26 00:09 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-22 21:22 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-24 11:43 +1100
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-24 01:31 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-23 22:03 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-24 13:51 +1100
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-24 21:42 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-26 06:59 +1100
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Happy.Hobo" <Happy.Hobo@Spam.Invalid> - 2016-10-23 23:52 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-23 20:53 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-24 01:49 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-23 22:03 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-24 21:54 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-24 21:01 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-24 23:00 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-25 00:10 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-24 23:11 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2016-10-25 21:14 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2016-10-21 13:50 +1300
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-20 21:32 -0400
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2016-10-21 08:53 +0000
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-22 10:05 +1100
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-22 10:03 +1100
            Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2016-10-20 15:30 +0000
              Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-20 15:02 -0500
                Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2016-10-20 20:08 +0000
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-19 05:09 +1100
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 16:48 -0500
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2016-10-19 13:32 +1300
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-18 20:41 -0400
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2016-10-19 00:38 +0000
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-18 21:30 -0500
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2016-10-19 15:50 +0000
            Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-20 05:01 +1100
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-19 16:08 +1100
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-19 16:02 +1100
        Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-19 18:10 -0500
          Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2016-10-20 16:01 +1100
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Ed Light <nobody@nobody.there> - 2016-10-24 16:11 -0700
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-24 23:01 -0500
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Ed Light <nobody@nobody.there> - 2016-10-24 16:16 -0700
  Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Ed Light <nobody@nobody.there> - 2016-10-24 16:19 -0700
    Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2016-10-24 23:02 -0500
      Re: Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives? Ed Light <nobody@nobody.there> - 2016-10-24 21:38 -0700

csiph-web