Why are not USB Flash Drives a reliable media for archiving?

This is something I've heard many times on this forums, that USB Flash Drives are not a reliable medium for archiving, when I thought it was right the opposite.
I save my HD music (96/24, 192/24 and the likes) on a 64 Gig Flash Drive, I don't use it for playing music on my Pioneer SC-LX76 (which can play gapless Wav, Flac, DSD, MP3 and AAC), for that I have a similar drive, but the main one is the safety copy. Nothing gets deleted from it, just added until it's full, and then I'll buy a similar one. It's not the copy-delete-copy-delete one has for a USB Flash Drive intended to watch movies or TV Series, on this USB Drive, if an album goes in it, it's to remain on it and not to be deleted.
In addition to that, I have it put apart of any magnetic or electric inteference, and filled with Reynolds (yes, the one used in the kitchen) aluminium foiled.
No moving parts are involved on a USB Flash Drive and I'm not mistreating, what can go wrong?

 

I'm no expert but I've had a couple of smaller flash drives go haywire on me for no particular reason. There are, as you said, no moving parts so it's a mystery to me how they can fail even when treated carefully. One of my USB drives got locked in some fashion - and I can only play what is on it - I can't add or delete anything. A 32 Gig flash drive suddenly corrupted all of it's data (which included video as well as audio) for no reason whatsoever. I had a hell of a job to get it functional again which, of course, meant erasing everything that was on it.
Maybe price has something to do with it. None of my USB sticks have been expensive. But maybe the experts can explain it?

 

We're still kinda finding out how reliable Flash drives really are as a long-term storage medium. I've always thought of them as a temporary storage solution. I don't know how reliable they are if you just write to them and then put them away. My experience has been that they can become corrupt after lots of use (lots of rewrite activity, which is not how you're using it), but I often end up upgrading to larger sizes before it happens.

When they first started becoming popular I kept forgetting I had flash drives in my jean pockets, then actually ran them through the wash and dry cycles. Just this spring, I found a flash drive that must have fallen out of my pocket last fall, it stayed outside the whole winter and had to have been buried with snow for at least a month at one point. To my surprise, they worked fine afterwards in each case.

 

I've had a couple of problems with USB flash drives that required a reformat. I've used a lot of them over the years for work (building servers, holding software, for Ghost images, backups, transfers) and only a couple of glitches. There is something to the better brands - PNY have never given me problems.

 

Some real case examples of issues I ran into:
A 256MB Memorex drive I used back in the day eventually became corrupt after a couple years' use (again, lots of writes, erases and rewrites)
A really nice Patriot 2GB stick, wonderful design and great speed, but man I had so many issues with drive failing to be recognized even after not making any changes to its contents. Had to email the manufacturer for a "drive reset tool", where it worked for another day then started failing again. I couldn't rely on it.

 

I think flash drives are fine as long as they don't contain your only copy of an important file. I've had too many odd errors with flash memory to consider them fool proof: files suddenly corrupted, files suddenly missing, drive no longer recognized, etc. And that's with using the "safely remove hardware" feature in Windows.

 

I'm not certain about reliability, but I haven't used them mainly due to the size -- even 64GB is just too small as a full backup solution for me versus a 500GB+ HDD. Plus there's the price/GB to deal with, again versus a SATA HDD.

I consider them like floppy disks -- good for short-term use or even as a way to backup a few critical items in a pinch. But as a long-term backup solution they are still too small a size for me to consider.

 

I'm using SSD's in my two latest computers and I'm a bit concerned about those. I've heard that some of the SSD's fail after a while but have no idea why. The other day my laptop crashed and I suspected the worst, but a reboot worked fine. The drives are fast as can be, but I'm still a bit concerned that one of both will fail.

 

USB Flash drives have a limited number of read/write cycles. They eventually stop functioning.

 

Here's an article - albeit from 2010 - reporting on test results for USB drive lifespan:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/usb-drive-life-fact-or-fiction/849

 

They do have a suggested lifetime.

 

They store the bits as charge in tiny capacitors. If there's a manufacturing problem with the chip, the charge can gradually leak away. Early chips were single-level: the capacitor was either charged or not. Most modern chips are multi-level: Each cell can contain one of several levels of charge, each equating to a different bit combination. For example, a chip with 4 possible levels per cell will contain 2 bits per cell. This makes them more susceptible to the effects of charge leakage.

From an archive point of view, the problem is that it's time based - some time in the future, the data may become corrupted. The prevention is 2-fold: Store in a cool environment (sealed in a baggie in the fridge), and once a year or so copy it to another stick and back. Use a copy utility that does verify-after-write to make sure it gets written without errors.

 

My oldest thumb drive is 6 years old, never had a problem. It's a 4g Sandisk I bought for $39 ! That was a deal then, now I get 32g's for $16-$17.

Anyway..I've since acquired several thumbs and NOT once have I had a problem or found any to have been corrupted. I use and reuse about half and use the others for temporary 'storage' (much less writing and re-writing) along with other external HD's. I've got music, video's, text data and photo's on my old 4g/8g thumbs I use quite regularly for 'viewing'. Work like a charm...

For those who have difficulty with thumbs OR your computers. I don't get it. All my stuff has worked flawlessly..my desktop is over 10 years old and fine, my laptop is approaching 6 years. I don't multitask or overwork my stuff and that must be the difference. I take care and am gentle with my delicate devices and it shows. I can only imagine those who have difficulty overdo things or just get a lemon that breaks down quickly.

I hope the treatment of my stuff continues to give me reliability and longevity as that's what has worked for me.

I don't expect or live in with a 'throwaway' mentality like so many do and just rebuy, rebuy, upgrade, upgrade and perpetuate that lifestyle. My equipment has responded in kind. It's just so cosmic !!!

 

I've had no problems with mine,unless I don't hit "Eject" on the menu on the left before removing them..That's where people make the biggest mistake,and make them Malfunction! Always do that,unless you want your files to disappear! And,always have your files burned on a DVD-R as a safety Precaution,too-doesn't hurt to have a backup plan!

 

Good for you.

 

Yes it is....not so for others, apparently.

 

As was said above, we just don't know. There are suggested lifespans, etc, and that's all we have to go on. Until they've been around long enough and old data has been checked, all we have to go on is theory.

 

Yep, flash drives use insulated-gate technology. As was pointed out previously, they represent the data as stored charge. How long they can retain that data depends on how good the insulation is, which will determine how fast the charge leaks off. Modern devices have amazingly good insulation, but I think that, after a long time, the charge will leak off and the data will be corrupted. IMHO they are probably better than rotating hard drives. With hard drives, the problem is that, especially with long periods of disuse, the mechanical parts may seize up. Of course, with any digital medium, there's also the problem of obsolescence; can you find a way to read the media.

So I think the name of the game with digital media is refresh. Every few years one needs to copy data from older media to newer media. In the past 8 years, I've gone from a pair of 250 GB drives which I started with, to a pair of 500 GB drives, to three 2 TB drives for my home collection. So far as portable music, I started with a 4 GB Sony player, then an 8 GB Sony player, and currently a 32 GB SD card in my phone. The 32 GB card in about 70% full (4000 MP3 tracks), and eventually I'll replace it with a 64 GB card. For the most part, refreshing has come with upgrading, for me.

 

So, if one has the Beatles USB apple stick, how should it be treated/cared for?

 

Like OnTheRoad, I have had no problems with my USB drives over the years. I live in Colorado, and OTR lives in Utah -- both states have dry climates. Maybe its coincidence, but could it be that low humidity is better for USB drives?

 

It would be prudent to make a few backup copies, although that might be of questionable legality depending on your location.

 

I live in San Jose - low humidity also. I probably hammer flash drives harder than most folks because I use them for work. I have had no hardware failures and just a couple of glitches that reformatting fixed in 10 years. They are reliable but not perfect. If we want to archive, we want perfection.

 

Heat is an enemy of flash memory. So don't leave your Beatles USB in a hot car. Flash, like most semiconductors, is usually sealed in epoxy, so humidity should not be a problem. Keep a backup copy. In the event of data corruption, you likely could re-write the data from the backup (assuming the flash drive is writable). Most flash drives have "leveling" algorithms which, in part, replace bad sectors with "replacement" sectors. So flash memory is likely to remain usable even when some sectors have been marked as bad by the internal controller.

 

I've had the USB end break off of flash drives before. Usually a careless cleaning person at my job with a rogue vacuum cleaner is the culprit, or I've broken a few just bumping into them (when plugged in) as they tend to stick out of the computer they're plugged into.

 

Yes - not as bad, but I have broken the plastic case on some and glued them back together with SuperGlue.