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Comment from Jo Wo on 2009-05-04

2009-05-04T15:01:29Z

I've only had my 8gb kingston thumb drive for a short while and havent used it for much, the occasional word document or so. But as if overnight, I don't know what happened, but now my thumb drive has been reduced to the capacity of 4mb! and also says that it needs to be formatted. I used some partition making program provided by kingston so i don;t know if that screwed up the thing or maybe its somehow this 'wearing out' phenomenon. I've formatted it but it still remains on 4mb capacity! What could have happened?? I don't recall doing any thumb drive no-nos recently...

It sounds like your partition making program made a partition. I'm guessing that you need to re-run it, or another partition program, and reconfigure that drive to be a single 8gig partition.

- Leo
05-May-2009

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Comment from Mark on 2009-04-16

2009-04-16T12:51:16Z

I use USB drives pretty regularly with some pen drive apps, especially T-bird and Firefox and a few recovery tools I use to fix peoples computers like Bart-PE, Ubuntu and file recovery stuff. I haven't had any problems but I keep a folder on my hard drive for each USB drive and back up regularly. No hardware is immune to failure. My only loss would be the $10 I invested in my stick.

Here's an old classic:

Yesterday-The Backup Song
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data’s gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday

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Comment from David on 2009-04-14

2009-04-14T22:12:16Z

What about thumb drives used in Vistas's "Ready Boost" facility or E-Boostr's program that alleges to do much the same thing in XP?
http://www.eboostr.com/
I tried E-Boostr in XP and I can't say as I noticed a great deal of difference in the perkiness factor, despite using high speed drives! How much reading/writing goes on using these facilities and what sort of life will the drives have? (Tedious, I would imagine!). I did read one report that MS expects a thumb drive using Ready Boost to outlast the PC's life, which seems a tad optimistic to me.

Ready boost actually doesn't constantly write to the flash drive. What it does, as I understand it, is it "pre-loads" some things that you commonly use onto the flash drive for presumably quicker access. It's not a swap file at all.

So, yeah, I actually agree with Microsoft's assessment - since it's not constantly being written to it may well outlive your computer when used for ReadyBoost.

I also have to agree with you. Every report I've heard back is that ReadyBoost doesn't really help that much.

- Leo
15-Apr-2009

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Comment from Ken Amirault on 2009-04-14

2009-04-14T18:42:37Z

"Diskeeper Corporation" has a reference in it's settings for Diskeeper 2009 that says it has technology to help flash units from becoming error prone and suggests that longevity can be attained by using their defragmenting technology.

If it "flashes" the drive as you say, defragmenting would reduce longevity, no?

I'm not questioning your guruness, O Mighty Leo, but this seems to be a contradiction. I don't know enough about it, just what I read.

My 2 cents CDN.

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Comment from Skeptical on 2009-04-07

2009-04-07T14:20:38Z

I'd rather see some information from the manufacturers on this. Wear-leveling is supposed to be built into the memory controller, so it automatically takes care of wear, and only writes to parts that haven't been written to too many times. One would presume that it would also double-check everything it's written to make sure it can be read correctly, and mark it as a bad sector if it doesn't read back what it wrote.

Yeah, they wear out, but I'm skeptical that you would actually lose any data because of it. In a well-designed product, the available capacity on the drive would just decrease over time.

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Comment from Bart on 2009-03-30

2009-03-30T13:32:06Z

the flash can not be read from any computer. They do not recognize a new storage device (the red led on the flash is not on) . is the flash drive gone for good or can it be saved?

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Comment from Andre vanMeerbeek on 2009-03-11

2009-03-11T22:09:22Z

Extremely interesting subject. I heard someone say the Eee computer from Asus (and other me-too products) did not have a hard disk, only flash memory. I just browsed through the Asus website, but did not find a confirmation. True, not true?

Not sure on the specific model, but yes, some do have a solid state flash-based disks (SSD). The technology is improving. The flash disks will still wear out, and how quickly will depend on how you use them, but the SSDs likely use a better quality flash memory than your run-of-the-mill USB thumbdrive. I'm staying away from SSDs right now, but I expect that the technology will continue to improve such that an SSD won't wear out until after the expected lifespan of the rest of the computer.

- Leo
12-Mar-2009

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Comment from S. Garrett on 2009-02-21

2009-02-22T04:31:55Z

If these new SSD drives use flash memory, will they also become corrupted quickly from the constant writes?

I keep thinking about jumping to SSD as the prices drop and the sizes jump, and the biggest attraction to me is not the blazing speed (that is nice too), but the peace-of-mind from not having to worry about the old fashioned platter-spinning drives physically crashing.

However, after reading all these comments, it sounds like I'll be lucky if an SSD drive can last a year or two as the main drive on my computer before all the little bits start blowing like fuses.

Do these SSD drives use the same type of flash memory and what kind of life expectancy can I expect. (OZC's latest SSD drive says 1.5 million hours mean time before failure or MTBF, but now I am wondering what that spec measures - is that all time spent reading data and none spent writing).

If the little bits are all being flashed into oblivion will I even get a fraction of that 1.5 million hours? Should I hold off with SSD drives and embrace my good old platter-spinning drives for data integrity and longevity for a while longer?

What I'm hearing is that the flash technology used for SSD drives is improving all the time, and that they may well be viable for many applications. Like you, I'd be nervous, but no longer so nervous that I wouldn't consider trying it. But ... BACKUP! Good advice anyway, but even more so now.

- Leo
22-Feb-2009

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Comment from Punk on 2009-02-21

2009-02-21T15:09:37Z

this is just shocking, now i know the reason why my flash drive get many serious problems, when i put the flash drive connected to the computer, i just open my drive and directly run my applications stored in the flash, since the application writes and updates the data in my flash, that's the problem, i had just ran out of write limit of the flash drive, you know, it has so many bad sectors today, i bought last year, yeah, you're right, why don't we just take out a large data storage for more safe and secure data to bring, ready to make a space for a hard drive in my bag, lol, thank you, this is open-minding for a amateur programmer like me

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Comment from Joe Krahn on 2009-01-16

2009-01-16T17:25:31Z

J. P. Gilliver is not completely right, as he forgot the point that live database usage can do thousands of writes in one day.

Here is a more important question: Do flash drives manage bad blocks like modern disk drives? If not, they are getting large enough that they probably will start to support SMART testing.

Not quite like hard disks, but as I understand it, more modern flash drives do include something called "wear levelling" that spreads out the usage, and hence the wear, across the entire device, regardless of how it's used. I'm sure this is oversimplified, but each time you write to the device, even if you're re-writing the exact same sector, it's written to a different physical location in the flash memory. It's all transparent, so you never see it, but the effect is that even writing the exact same bit over and over again from the outside will actually get spread throughout the available bits in the device.

- Leo
17-Jan-2009

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Comment from Nicholas on 2008-10-20

2008-10-20T22:45:10Z

Comment and questions. Well, everything dies eventually. For flash drives, other factors may present risks, too. I have lost all info few times just because I did not have patience to wait until XP would allow to EJECT/ disconnect USB drive from USB port. That I believe would be the major cause for failure - but drives would work after re-formatting; some recovery software would even let me save some files. I carry my drives with my keys in the pocket of my pants - such a location where they are exposed to mechanical impacts, heat, cold, moisture, electric and magnetic fields from different, at times very powerful sources; you bet this can be damaging, too. [And I've found that data can be lost even from recorded CD-R(W)s or DVD-R(W)s, if the media is not very high quality or not fully compatible; if recording speed or conditions are not good...]
Any technology is imperfect; I try to backup my USB drive onto an external USB or eSATA drive and on recordable/rewritable media, mostly DVD+-R as they are cheap now. And I try to be wise, prepared and "anxious for nothing".
MY QUESTION WOULD BE – what about SD cards, how do they measure up, compared to flash drives? Why they are called “Secure Digital” cards? Are they any better than flash drives etc, reliability wise? What removable media is the best in this sense? And how to know what they sell, how many rewrites that media will sustain? Shouldn’t they inform customers about all that? Thanks and best wishes = Nicholas

SD cards are flash cards. They use flash memory just like any other form factor. Secure I believe means that they support some sort of Digital Rights Management, but I could be mistaken on that.

- Leo
21-Oct-2008

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Comment from blahbleh on 2008-04-12

2008-04-12T07:03:59Z

A quick search reveals that SLC flash has 100000 and MLC flash has 10000.

There is almost NO need to worry about wearing modern flash memory out.

If I format and rewrite the ENTIRE flash disk twice a day, it'll last for more than 13 years with a cheap (read, common) MLC USB flash disk.

In any case, USB flash disks ensure that the wear is even, not concentrated. So it's not 10,000 writes; it's much, much less dramatic.

Use your USB as much as you like; it will be obselete before it is ruined.

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Comment from J. P. Gilliver on 2008-03-06

2008-03-06T20:16:12Z

1. The person who could write to subdirectories but not the root - maybe your root directory is full; try (moving everything out of and then) deleting a directory. There's a finite number of entries allowed in the root in many filing systems.

2. Hard disc bits fail too! It would be interesting to hear some how-many-writes figures for them (and maybe other technologies - ISTR CDRWs aren't very high), to companre with the 10k-100k that seems to be being bandied about for flash.

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2008-03-05

2008-03-05T16:57:15Z

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Everyone uses ReadyBoost as some kind of counter example,
and it's not.

Regardless of the terminology used, ReadyBoost is NOT,
repeat NOT a paging file in the traditional sense. It's much
more like a dynamically tuned pre-load cache, where Windows
can *read* things from quickly as much as it needs to.
Readyboost does NOT *write* to fash ram excessively - it
only updates that pre-load cache on a kind of as-needed
basis.

I've heard of one person actually putting their real Windows
swapfile onto flash memory. It lasted about two days before
the flash drive died. And yes, died as in throw it away
dead.

I stand by my statement: flash memory wears out. It's
getting better, lifespans are increasing, technologies are
being developed to avoid wearing it out any sooner than it
has to, but the bottom line is that writing to flash memory
wears it out. The more you write, the shorter the lifespan,
as simple as that.

Leo

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Comment from Tom Garcia on 2008-03-04

2008-03-04T22:56:05Z

Twice I have killed thumb drives when using them to move data from a MAC to a PC. MAC USB devices are not hot-swappable and if you forget to "eject" the device it can not only destroy data but render the device forever unusable. Neither the MAC or the PC now recognizes the existence of the drive(s).

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Comment from Graham Sivill on 2008-03-04

2008-03-04T22:20:06Z

Like the previous poster Vista's ready boost system has always worried me from the point of view of wearing out the USB flash drive. I always believed that USB memory sticks had a limited read-write duty cycle and presumably using readyboost means that data is being written to and from the drive at a very high frequency?

We really need to get someone from the flash drive industry to comment on this as increasingly we seem to be heading for solid state disk drives like the optional one in the Mac Air. If these drives are comprised of the same flash memory as USB sticks then presumably they have a limited life span that may be much less than the equivalent hard disk.

Don't get me wrong I want solid state technology as it peeeves me that in the year 2008 we are still using storage that has to spin at 7500 rpm or faster and they are the cause of so much noise, heat and power consumption. Flash drives are better in every respect ... except perhaps one??

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Comment from Reg on 2008-03-04

2008-03-04T21:21:37Z

I would think that in normal operation users would be more apt to lose their data in a laundry cycle than write as many times as needed. Backing up these devices is sage advice, but there isn't a need to throw them out (unless it is with the wash!)
Heck, Microsoft even encourages the use of USB Flash memory as extended RAM/pagefile in Vista.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx

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Comment from Patrick on 2007-10-25

2007-10-25T22:52:10Z

Yap...it can be quite headache with Thumb drive. I can see my files in the USB drive,but when I try to open or copy them out to another drive, it could not.
I could not even defrag it. any solution?

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Comment from Tri Dinh on 2007-05-21

2007-05-21T23:21:23Z

I have a USB thumb drive problem. Just bought a new one 3 weeks ago. I cannot move files to it any longer, the message comes up as "the directory or file cannot be created." I can move the file into a subfolder already on the drive but cannot move it into the drive itself without putting into a subfolder. Also, I cannot rename a subfolder in the drive. I had the same problem on a previous USB drive, bought a new one and all was OK for about 3 weeks, then it happened to the new drive also.
thanks, Tri

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2007-02-26

2007-02-27T01:00:52Z

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Not that I'm aware of. You could try CHKDSK /R on it, perhaps.

Leo
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Comment from doug on 2007-02-26

2007-02-27T00:54:42Z

Is there any software that will test a thumb drive for remaining life / failing cells / etc?

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Comment from vera on 2006-09-04

2006-09-04T09:49:28Z

my thumbdrive cannot be detected by the usb port. i cannot access my files. all my school projects saved in it are totally inaccessible now. pls help. i need them urgently.

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Comment from Cec on 2006-08-18

2006-08-18T22:56:17Z

If you are able to format your USB drive with NTFS (not all systems support this), data on the stick will be "safer". Note I said safer; safer then FAT or FAT32 storage.

Hardware failure cannot be circumvented; however good care of the USB stick will assist in "increasing" it's life span.

Ordinary USB stick drives will "crash" sooner then an average hard drive. A backup copy, or rather copies, on various media is or are essential.

Personally, I backup critical managable data onto 2 different computer drives (on different computers), also to DVD and items small enough also get zipped and emailed to myself.

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Comment from Annie on 2006-08-07

2006-08-07T14:16:46Z

Hi,

I am new to the world of portable applications on USBs.So I need a little guidance.I am exploring of developing a portable application on a thumbdrive, which can be connected to a computer and can transfer data to a server database. It would be a standalone application probably developed in java.

Now, I have been going through a lot of articles on the internet. They talk about thumb drive, U3, Ceedo. What would be the best option?can you tell em teh pros and cons of all these options available and what would be the best for my kind of application.

Thanks

Annie

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2006-08-03

2006-08-04T02:10:51Z

What you're suggesting isn't that difficult. Just minimize writes to the USB drive. I'm not sure what other pointers you might be looking for.

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Comment from Annie on 2006-08-03

2006-08-04T01:56:14Z

Hi,

I need some guidance and introduction into using USBs for carrying my application. The application that I am developing would be loaded on a thumb drive without actually having to upload anything on the host computer. With an internet connection, all the data written to the thumb drive should be transferred to a server database.. Any help will be appreciated.

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Comment from James on 2006-05-07

2006-05-08T01:31:02Z

I recently blogged about this and had a good amount of feedback from readers regarding the debatable lifespans of flashdrives with some of them saying that most modern USB drives had algorithms which were intelligent enough to spread out the usage patterns, and also separate bad sectors to minimise the chances of the flashdrive completely dying anytime too soon. Check it out here:

http://friedbeef.blogspot.com/2006/05/can-usb-thumbdrive-wear-out.html

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Comment from Robert on 2006-04-17

2006-04-17T20:10:57Z

One other issue with USB thumb drives. The connector on the end is a high stress point. There are reported cases where it breaks internally. When that happens, your data is inaccessible!

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