GeoffF100 wrote:stacker512 wrote:People on r/datahoarder would likely say that you should never use flash drives for important storage (high failure rates?).
This reminds me to put my finance data onto my small server. A ZFS cluster of 4 hard drives in RAIDZ-2 that can take 2 drive failure before data is lost. And I need to get onto a cloud storage too.
The flash drive will almost certainly works and has a label attached to it saying that there is a more up to date version on my PC. They will not be able to log in, but a professional will be able to use a live USB to read my files. I will have to get round to setting up the cloud storage folder. That will fail only if Microsoft/Google scrubs my data. That happens to some people.
I still wouldn't trust flash drives for long-term storage of important data:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... liability/The main issue you will find will be IOPS and how long the USB can read/write before dying or starting to give errors, as they're not the most reliable "long term".
industry consensu based on significant amounts of anecdotal evidence suggests, that USB thumb drives are quite unreliable and made using the absolute cheapest available flash memory.
Another thread (which has expletives in the title, so won't post here) says:
in my experience they should always be treated as a supplemental/convenient way to transport some data not the main storage location.
Because they are all low quality and unreliable.
Thumb drives are made with cheap flash and are meant to be used to transfer data between computers, not to store data for long periods.
People want cheap stuff so manufacturers oblige, the majority of USB flash drives are indeed cheap junk. Very slow to write, built cheaply so it falls apart. Made with the NAND that was no good for anything else. Then the same people who sorted by price and bought the cheapest one get mad that it's junk and leave a bad review.
There are good flash drives but it's 5% of the market or less.
Some more interesting discussion (especially how the electric charge leaks over time):
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/co ... _lifespan/