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#31
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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 doesnıt much matter who you go with, theyıre all built to be essentially disposable. That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so youıd be getting some nifty free refreshes if youıre 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. Itıs not a huge expense, so I donıt 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!!!!! -- 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. |
#32
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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. |
#33
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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 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. |
#34
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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. |
#35
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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 |
#36
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
Ant wrote
Rod Speed wrote I think, for the industry, flash drives are seen as the new floppy. It doesnıt much matter who you go with, theyıre all built to be essentially disposable. That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so youıd be getting some nifty free refreshes if youıre 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. Itıs not a huge expense, so I donıt 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.... |
#37
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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 shouldnt 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 shouldnt 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 |
#38
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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 doesnıt much matter who you go with, theyıre all built to be essentially disposable. That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so youıd be getting some nifty free refreshes if youıre 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. Itıs not a huge expense, so I donıt 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. |
#39
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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. -- __ __ #_ |\| | _# |
#40
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Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?
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 doesnıt much matter who you go with, theyıre all built to be essentially disposable. That said, though, they all seem to come with a 2+ year warranty, so youıd be getting some nifty free refreshes if youıre 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. Itıs not a huge expense, so I donıt 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. |
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