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

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:


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/l...sb-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.

Too much writing from it? It didn't even finish installing and booting!
I know those USB flash drives were hot to touch. :/


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.

That is what I wanted to and yet they die on me. Argh!!!!!
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few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te
Kanawa
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On 10-19-2016 17:40, Ant wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Happy.Hobo wrote:
On 10-18-2016 16:28, Ant wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Happy.Hobo wrote:
Every time I think I need another (sometimes failure, but more often
size), I pay about the same as before and get twice the size.

How often do you have to do that? I find it annoying this is happening
so often!

Every one or two years. But remember, it's usually NOT due to failure.

Not failures? You have a collection of them from upgrading to bigger and
faster USB flash drives? :P

I have had two failures, IIRC. I have tossed or given away a few that I
have replaced with bigger ones. I also put bootable operating systems
of different versions on some of the eight-gig sticks.

one-, two- and four-gig, I kept around until I had reason to use them to
give some files to someone else (since many e-mail servers have a size
limit.

I have never bothered to test whether one is faster than another.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Ant wrote

Either I'm having bad luck

Or are mistreating them in some way.

Maybe. I am trying to figure out why so
many failed USB flash drives on my side.

Yeah, very suspicious given that we don???t get so many failures.

Don???t you get quite a few hard drive failures
too or am I remembering that wrong ?

Just very old drives like IDE/ATA, etc. I have had data corruptions too,
but no problems after reformatting and putting datas on them. One was a
HDD crash because my client dropped his MacBook Pro. Heh!


Some just stopped working and not detected at all
by any computers (desktops and (laptop/notebook)s
and OSes (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows).

That is the result I got with the only one that has failed.
I haven't even bothered to open it up to check how its
failed, whether it is a simple mechanical failure, dry
joint/cracked trace etc or what.

Their cases are hard to open up!

Some of them arent, have a look at the youtube teardowns.

Looking at their USB connectors, they look clean and fine to me.

Yeah, it???s a pretty robust connector. I have
seen some cables develop weak springs tho.

I use a cable from the USB port on the desktop to plug
the USB stick into, just so the cable socket is to the left
of the big armchair that I always compute from.

Ah, USB cable extender. Useful for those hard to reach or far away
places.


No bad odors like burning smell.

Yeah, they don???t die like that.

The only thing noticeable is their
temperatures are hot after long usages.

I don???t use them that long, just copy the movies on to them.

Ah. I just noticed the two broken USB flash drive connected for a couple
minutes, and they get hot already even if they aren't doing much. Is
that even normal? :/


Some are detected but no disk volumes seen and
can't even partition and format. Some seen and
connected, but can't been fully formatted.

What's up?

Either bad luck or the way you are treating them static wise.

The kids don't do anything special with them static wise
and the houses are all carpeted, 3 different houses. And
at least one of them has full aircon used in the winter for
heating which can be a static problem. One other has gas
heating and I forget what the third one has heating wise.
I've only been in there in other than the winter, moving
some heavy furniture in there.

No carpets here, but a few rugs. Mostly hard floors (never dropped
them). Temperatures can be hot (up to 90F degrees in the room during
heat waves). The two drives that went bust was during the cold and wet
temperatures (60F degrees and light rain outside; 70F degres indoor).

Should be fine.

OK.


lots of physically moving around, etc.?

These get plenty of that, usually in cars but not always.

Most of the times, the tiny drives are in my wallets to be carried
where-ever I go. They don't move around much in the crowded
tight wallet in my front pockets. That should be OK, right?

Yep. Shouldn???t even be a static problem with a plastic wallet either.

Well, this is an old vinyl wallet.


I have seen people put them on their keychains and appear to be
more abusive since they hit desks. tables, etc. but they still work.

Yeah, and they are pretty mechanically robust.

Is Lexar brand any good as shown in
http://www.salescircular.com/ca/computer/usbstp.shtml web page
from the local So(uthern) CA(lifornia) stores (Fry's Electronics, Best
Buy, Costco, Walmart, Target, Office Depot, Staples, etc.).

Yes, some of the ones I use are Lexars.

Hmm, I might try Lexars next. Or maybe well known brands
won't metter to me since Sandisk failed for me in the past. :/

I do have some sandisks, but the problem with sandisks is that
there are some fakes around too. Not that likely to be your
problem tho given that you don???t buy off ebay or aliexpress.

Right, I avoid those places. I usually get them from retail stores. Of
course free ones from where-ever, but they also die/break too. It made
no differences for me!


Of course they must be returnable if the drives
die quickly again within return times. :P

Thank you in advance.

Still smirking.

I will always smirk.

Yep, you've always been a smirky little bugger.

:P
--
Quote of the Week: "I really believe I've been a good person. Not
perfect - forget about perfect - but just learning by what I was taught
and living by my own values. I might have stepped on a few ants - and a
few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te
Kanawa
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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Happy.Hobo wrote:
Every time I think I need another (sometimes failure, but more often
size), I pay about the same as before and get twice the size.

How often do you have to do that? I find it annoying this is happening
so often!

Every one or two years. But remember, it's usually NOT due to failure.

Not failures? You have a collection of them from upgrading to bigger and
faster USB flash drives? :P

I have had two failures, IIRC. I have tossed or given away a few that I
have replaced with bigger ones. I also put bootable operating systems
of different versions on some of the eight-gig sticks.

one-, two- and four-gig, I kept around until I had reason to use them to
give some files to someone else (since many e-mail servers have a size
limit.

I have never bothered to test whether one is faster than another.

Ah. I still keep the working ones in my desk like the USB v1.1 64 MB!
Haha. I do toss/destroy broken/dead ones.
--
Quote of the Week: "I really believe I've been a good person. Not
perfect - forget about perfect - but just learning by what I was taught
and living by my own values. I might have stepped on a few ants - and a
few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te
Kanawa
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
( ) ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.

In message
Happy.Hobo wrote:
(since many e-mail servers have a size limit.

*ALL* mail servers have a size limit.

--
'Who's that playing now, Mr. Dibbler?' "'And you".' 'Sorry, Mr.
Dibbler?' 'Only they write it &U,' said Dibbler. --Soul Music

Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote

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/l...sb-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.

Too much writing from it?

Unlikely, that doesn't write all that much.

It didn't even finish installing and booting!
I know those USB flash drives were hot to touch. :/

Yeah, that might well be what 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.

That is what I wanted to and yet they die on me. Argh!!!!!

That's because of all that drunken grave dancing you get up to.

You were warned, boy. You wouldn't listen....

Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Ant wrote

Either I'm having bad luck

Or are mistreating them in some way.

Maybe. I am trying to figure out why so
many failed USB flash drives on my side.

Yeah, very suspicious given that we don???t get so many failures.

Don't you get quite a few hard drive failures
too or am I remembering that wrong ?

Just very old drives like IDE/ATA, etc.

I've only ever had the one of those of mine die
and I have a lot more of them than you do.

And one that one of the neighbours kids killed by kicking
the system over accidentally when installing Win7 on it.

I have had data corruptions too,

Haven't had any of that either.

but no problems after reformatting and putting datas on them. One
was a HDD crash because my client dropped his MacBook Pro. Heh!

Yeah, I remember that one now. That is very understandable
and like I say I have had one of those too. That system is
basically a laptop in a desktop mini case.

Some just stopped working and not detected at all
by any computers (desktops and (laptop/notebook)s
and OSes (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows).

That is the result I got with the only one that has failed.
I haven't even bothered to open it up to check how its
failed, whether it is a simple mechanical failure, dry
joint/cracked trace etc or what.

Their cases are hard to open up!

Some of them arent, have a look at the youtube teardowns.

Looking at their USB connectors, they look clean and fine to me.

Yeah, it???s a pretty robust connector. I have
seen some cables develop weak springs tho.

I use a cable from the USB port on the desktop to plug
the USB stick into, just so the cable socket is to the left
of the big armchair that I always compute from.

Ah, USB cable extender. Useful for
those hard to reach or far away places.

Yeah, that system is more than 6' away and
I have to get up and walk over to it to plug
anything into it. Been too lazy to clean up
the ****ing great mess of two obsolete systems
that never get used and the immense mess of
cables around them so that current desktop is
within easy reach like the obsolete ones are.
It still sits on the top of the table that has
the printer in it, with no covers on it at all.

No bad odors like burning smell.

Yeah, they don???t die like that.

The only thing noticeable is their
temperatures are hot after long usages.

I don't use them that long, just copy the movies on to them.

Ah. I just noticed the two broken USB flash drive connected
for a couple minutes, and they get hot already even if they
aren't doing much. Is that even normal? :/

No its not, they shouldn’t be doing that.

I did plug the one dead USB stick back in again to refresh my
memory about how it behaves and it does get seen by the
system, the system says it needs to be formatted and when
you format it nothing ever happens. I left that plugged in
for hours after doing that and it never even got warm.

I have had some that are noticeably a little warmer
after I have filled them with movies than they were
when I plugged them in, but never any that got hot.

Some are detected but no disk volumes seen and
can't even partition and format. Some seen and
connected, but can't been fully formatted.

What's up?

Either bad luck or the way you are treating them static wise.

The kids don't do anything special with them static wise
and the houses are all carpeted, 3 different houses. And
at least one of them has full aircon used in the winter for
heating which can be a static problem. One other has gas
heating and I forget what the third one has heating wise.
I've only been in there in other than the winter, moving
some heavy furniture in there.

No carpets here, but a few rugs. Mostly hard floors (never dropped
them). Temperatures can be hot (up to 90F degrees in the room during
heat waves). The two drives that went bust was during the cold and wet
temperatures (60F degrees and light rain outside; 70F degres indoor).

Should be fine.

OK.


lots of physically moving around, etc.?

These get plenty of that, usually in cars but not always.

Most of the times, the tiny drives are in my wallets to be carried
where-ever I go. They don't move around much in the crowded
tight wallet in my front pockets. That should be OK, right?

Yep. Shouldn???t even be a static problem with a plastic wallet either.

Well, this is an old vinyl wallet.

Still should be fine given that the big USB connector has the pins
well inside the connector body. They shouldn’t be in contact with
the wallet at all.

I have seen people put them on their keychains and appear to be
more abusive since they hit desks. tables, etc. but they still work.

Yeah, and they are pretty mechanically robust.

Is Lexar brand any good as shown in
http://www.salescircular.com/ca/computer/usbstp.shtml web page
from the local So(uthern) CA(lifornia) stores (Fry's Electronics,
Best
Buy, Costco, Walmart, Target, Office Depot, Staples, etc.).

Yes, some of the ones I use are Lexars.

Hmm, I might try Lexars next. Or maybe well known brands
won't metter to me since Sandisk failed for me in the past. :/

I do have some sandisks, but the problem with sandisks is that
there are some fakes around too. Not that likely to be your
problem tho given that you don't buy off ebay or aliexpress.

Right, I avoid those places. I usually get them from retail stores.
Of course free ones from where-ever, but they also die/break
too. It made no differences for me!


Of course they must be returnable if the drives
die quickly again within return times. :P

Thank you in advance.

Still smirking.

I will always smirk.

Yep, you've always been a smirky little bugger.

:P

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote

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/l...sb-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.

Too much writing from it?

Unlikely, that doesn't write all that much.

It didn't even finish installing and booting!
I know those USB flash drives were hot to touch. :/

Yeah, that might well be what killed them.

The heat? Hmm, do all USB flash drives get hot after being connected?
--
Quote of the Week: "I really believe I've been a good person. Not
perfect - forget about perfect - but just learning by what I was taught
and living by my own values. I might have stepped on a few ants - and a
few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te
Kanawa
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
( ) ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Ant wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote

I think, for the industry, flash drives are seen as the new floppy.
It
doesn?t much matter who you go with, they?re all built to be
essentially disposable.

That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so
you?d be getting some nifty free refreshes if you?re 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. It?s not a huge expense, so I don?t 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/l...sb-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.

Too much writing from it?

Unlikely, that doesn't write all that much.

It didn't even finish installing and booting!
I know those USB flash drives were hot to touch. :/

Yeah, that might well be what killed them.

The heat? Hmm, do all USB flash drives get hot after being connected?

No (to the touch), but I've seen customer reviews of some miniature
ones that comment on them getting too hot to touch, perhaps even
beginning to melt the case of a laptop (my memory is sketchy on
whether this last claim was made or not).

One I'm thinking of was a well known brand sold very recently by
major retailers in Australia. I'm afraid I can't remember the
exact brand or model.

--
__ __
#_ |\| | _#

In article , Ant
wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote

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/l...usb-flash-driv
e
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.

Too much writing from it?

Unlikely, that doesn't write all that much.

It didn't even finish installing and booting!
I know those USB flash drives were hot to touch. :/

Yeah, that might well be what killed them.

The heat? Hmm, do all USB flash drives get hot after being connected?

They pretty much all get warm-ish to hot because the USB port is
sending electricity through for powering the drive and sending /
retreiveing data. How hot they get depends on the size of the case, how
much free air space there is around the circuit board, the materials
used in the case, the tightness of the circuit board design, etc. It
will also depend on where they're plugged in (behind a computer with
little air flow will make them hotter than sitting on the desk
underneath a fan).

They aren't really designed to be left plugged and in constant use.
They're designed to transfer files from one computer to another.