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



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 17th 16, 10:03 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage
Ant
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 858
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

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.

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). 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? I think I need to go buy new ones soon. What are GOOD
reliable brands 32+ GB that can handle hot temperatures (feeling them is
hot due to heavy usages like copying huge files, installing and running
OSes, etc. for hours), lots of physically moving around, etc.? 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.). Of course they
must be returnable if the drives die quickly again within return times.
:P

Thank you in advance.
--
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-
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  #2  
Old October 18th 16, 10:04 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage
Mark Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 110
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

On Mon, 17 Oct 2016 16:03:03 -0500, (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.

SNIP

Awhile back, someone recommended a program called USB Flash Drive
Tester, from
https://www.vconsole.com/download. I downloaded and
installed it, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet. I'd be curious
to see what it says about some of your devices. Of course, if they can't
be seen, there won't be much to report.

  #3  
Old October 18th 16, 04:23 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Doc O'Leary[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

For your reference, records indicate that
(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 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.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly


  #4  
Old October 18th 16, 06:13 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Happy.Hobo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

On 10-18-2016 10:23, Doc O'Leary wrote:
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.


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.
  #5  
Old October 18th 16, 07:09 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,559
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

Ant wrote

Either I'm having bad luck


Or are mistreating them in some way.

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.


I use them a lot, for the torrented movies the neighbours
kids get me to get for them that they pay on their PS3/4
and a set top box and have only ever had the one failure
with one unbranded one what appears to have failed at
the work place of the kids, a nursing home.

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.

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.

I think I need to go buy new ones soon. What are GOOD
reliable brands 32+ GB that can handle hot temperatures


I can't say given that I have had few failures and
don’t even know the brand of the one that did fail
given that its unbranded and marked with the
nursing home label.

(feeling them is hot due to heavy usages like copying
huge files, installing and running OSes, etc. for hours),


I don’t do that with these, just put movies on
them tho its clear that the kids do use them
for data like photos and assignments etc.

lots of physically moving around, etc.?


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

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.

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


Thank you in advance.


Still smirking.

  #6  
Old October 18th 16, 09:13 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Your Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In article , Doc O'Leary
wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
(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.



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
  #7  
Old October 18th 16, 10:15 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Computer Nerd Kev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 77
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Your Name wrote:
In article , Doc O'Leary
wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
(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.


I found that frequent erasures and writes of large files killed them
fairly fast, with just small writes to text files or the like they
served a good life, and for Read-Only use I've found they last very
well indeed.

The same goes for USB flash drives. I've seen people treating them
extremely badly.


I read online once a theory that it's usually the crystal (the
component in the metal can that has wire leads going to it)
that fails. Crystals are used in all sorts of things these days,
so it must be either poor quality, or some aspect of use, that would
make them more susceptable to failure in memory sticks specifically.

Modern thin, card-width, memory sticks seem to show that the
need for the traditionally large crystal package has been overcome.
Perhaps this has improved reliability? In any case, unlike the old
crystals, these modern integrated ones can't be easily replaced by
someone with a soldering iron.

The consequence of the crystal failing would usually be the memory
stick failing to be recognised by any computer. The data could well
be recovered if it were replaced afterwards.

--
__ __
#_ |\| | _#
  #8  
Old October 18th 16, 10:27 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage
Ant
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 858
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Mark Perkins wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2016 16:03:03 -0500, (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.

SNIP


Awhile back, someone recommended a program called USB Flash Drive
Tester, from
https://www.vconsole.com/download. I downloaded and
installed it, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet. I'd be curious
to see what it says about some of your devices. Of course, if they can't
be seen, there won't be much to report.


Here are Flash Drive/Card v1.14 test results on the two recent USB
flash drives:

One (SP brand) of the 32 GB drives failed in write (reading seems OK):
00:00:06.83 - -------------------------------- New test process started
00:00:06.84 - Started "Writing test data" for drive D: 30959MB, "SRT, USB, 1100, ", 512b
00:00:53.61 - ! Write fatal (3/3) error at LBN = 0 -- The semaphore timeout period has expired. (121.)
00:01:39.70 - ! Write fatal (3/3) error at LBN = 128 -- The semaphore timeout period has expired. (121.)
00:02:26.29 - ! Write fatal (3/3) error at LBN = 256 -- The semaphore timeout period has expired. (121.)
00:03:11.79 - ! Write fatal (3/3) error at LBN = 384 -- The semaphore timeout period has expired. (121.)
00:03:57.73 - ! Write fatal (3/3) error at LBN = 512 -- The semaphore timeout period has expired. (121.)
....
I guess it ran out of write cycles for being a few years old? It makes
sense since reformats (quick and full) failed to finish every time now.


The other drive (Patriot brand) failed to do anything since it could not
be seen even though all OSes can see an USB device. They all can't
access its datas like partitions. I cannot even repartition and reformat
it.

Both broke when I was trying to install mac OS X v10.12/Sierra onto
them. I know the new 15" MacBook Pro (Retina; mid-2015) rebooted already
into them to install.
--
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.
  #9  
Old October 18th 16, 10:28 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Ant
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 858
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Happy.Hobo wrote:
On 10-18-2016 10:23, Doc O'Leary wrote:
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.


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!
--
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.
  #10  
Old October 18th 16, 10:32 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Ant
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 858
Default Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Your Name wrote:
In article , Doc O'Leary
wrote:


For your reference, records indicate that
(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 see people having them on keychains and they hit
tables, desks, etc. hard and loudly a lot!


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? 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.
--
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.
 




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