Wear leveling arranges data so the erase and re-writes are distributed evenly across the flash memory during the life cycle of the device. By doing this leveling, no single erase block on the memory prematurely fails due to a high concentration of write cycles to a single location. The wear leveling algorithm is part of the USB controller firmware. The wear leveling is an algorithm designed for the brand of controller used to the brand of flash memory used.
Because there are many combinations of controller brands and flash memory brands, two types of wear leveling techniques are used with flash drives. Dynamic wear leveling and static wear leveling. Dynamic wear leveling uses a map to link logical block addresses where data goes according to logic to the physical flash memory address that holds the actual bit of data. It gets interesting because the dynamic algo will update the map when new data is written and old data is removed.
The problem with this method is the map updates on the data replaced; so in theory a portion never written, never gets used. Thus making the device last a shorter amount of time. Static wear leveling address this problem.
Meaning, the theory is the same as dynamic wear leveling; make a map of where data goes, but it also shifts data to unused portions of memory during the USB lifespan of the drive to insure longevity.
This last topic is obvious, but worth discussing. For example, if you place your family photos on a USB stick and put the flash drive into your safe, there is no problem the files will be there, working and accessible in years. The silicon holding the data will not change if the USB is put into safe storage without compromise. However; if the USB is in your pocket, car, backpack and is constantly being handled, there is a great chance the solder we spoke about earlier will affect some portion of the device.
When components and parts start falling apart, it is sure the device will not work. With that in mind, be sure you allocate the right device for the right type of job. Any kind of flash drive is fine to move data from one PC to another PC where the files can still be found on the hard drive of the computer.
If the flash drive is small, like 2GBs or less, probably not the most stable memory. For those still looking for a one word answer about the lifespan of a USB flash drive; the answer is: it varies! Source: GetUSB. Log In Register. Remember Me. Lost your password? This also assumes that your Time Capsule protects the Flash Drive from moisture or any other potentially damaging elements. AJAY 06 Jun, I need a good life long storage to put all my movies so according to you which is better?
You need to consider how many movies you want to store which will determine how large the Flash Drive needs to be. For example, our largest capacity model is GB. This could store approximately movies in MPEG format.
There is a handy guide on the page below regarding capacity sizes and how much data they can store. Which formatting tool would you recommend? Windows Format tool? Windows Diskpart? Whilst we cannot comment on specific software, in general, an erasing tool does cause greater wear. This is because each secure erase has ten passes writing over the USB.
Writing over the data multiple times causes the USB to wear our faster. Regarding the formatting tool - most users should find the capabilities of standard Windows Formatting tools more than adequate for their needs. Ele 13 Jun, I use my USB in my car everyday to listen to music but never unplug it from the car. Is it safe to leave it in the car or should I unplug it every day to avoid the heat? Best practice would be to unplug it, as cars can become very hot, and this may lead to the USB overheating.
Unkown 25 Jun, There are three problems in flash based memory. The first problem is write cycle limit. If you write over tens of thousands times on a same memory block, the block will be permanently damaged. The second problems is read limit. If you read the same memory block over tens of thousands times, data on the memory block can be tainted.
To avoid this, it's recommended to rewrite data periodically after use of thousands of times. The third problem is that if you don't use flash memory for extended time, it can go bad. To avoid this problem, use flash memory every a few month at least a time.
Siddhartha 10 Aug, i have a sony and sandisk usb flash drive and i have a lot of music videos and movies in it so i plug it in my tv and watch it for hours nd hours and leaving it plugged in for days so i was wondering could it get spoilt after taking it out and pugging it in so many times in the tv and even letting it stay there for days? Unkown 11 Aug, You need to make backups. Otherwise you will lose all of them. It is important to note that all drives at some point fail.
Backup is the solution. I hope this helps! Chris at Flashbay. Is there a difference in this type of read cycle since it's continuous for about an hour and half compared to reading the same movie and same amount of data in a few seconds while copying?
I installed Counter Strike Source with a steam library on it, and I want to play it from my flashdrive. Will running the game off my flash drive cause it to wear out quicker than usual, or will it make little difference. The flash dirve has about 1GB of space left on it and is 3 years old. Does Flashbay have any way to guarantee that at least out of the box their products aren't loaded with Brutal Kangaroo or other malware exploits?
Robert Leavitt 12 Jan, On the subject of thumb-drive lifespan - I bought my first 4GB drive about to move files between college and home PCs. The chrome is worn through, the brand logo vanished long ago from knocking around in my pocket with keys, change, nail-clippers, etc.
Of course, I don't use it, or ANY drive, for anything irreplaceable. I either have a back-up, can replace any lost data fairly easily although sometimes with a fair bit of swearing , or can manage to survive without it. Lucy 14 Jan, Hi I have some files, like pics, music, and some documents I want to keep.
I plan on keeping forever, but want to know if I should use a usb stick or portable hard drive. I don't actually open them frequently, it's like my digital photobook kinda thing. The data size right now is 10gb. Noah 22 Feb, I have a question though. Is there a way of checking how worn off your flash drive is? I mean on computer if there is different ways as far as windows 7,8 and 10, can you explain those to me as well? Joe 26 Mar, Are there 'little boxes' on the market in which flash drives can be properly stored and especially protected from dust?
Here at Flashbay we offer a variety of these accessory options for all of our Flash Drives, ranging from magnetic clip boxes to metallic tin boxes and even wooden boxes. Some of the drives will work for a month or 2 and then stop working. Any thoughts? Denise 17 Jul, I have 2 thumb drives that have important info on them. They have been stored in zip lock bags and then I an unused storage container on my desk.
They have not been used frequently. Both are Sandisks. Is this common? Anything I can do to get the computer to recognize them? Sarah Chambers , Flashbay 18 Jul, Hi Denise, as the thumb drives in question are not Flashbay products we would be unable to determine the exact cause of the issue. Good Luck Kind regards, Sarah at Flashbay. Frederick George Fosberry 25 Jul, I would like to buy a usb3 flash drive so that i can save programs from my tv what do you recommend I get. Maurice Smulders 07 Sep, If we were to write between 24 and 48MB per day on a 16GB flashbay drive, how long would the endurance be?
Many thanks, Sarah Chambers. Hayden 30 Nov, I've read great reviews on your flash drives mainly regarding quality and longevity.
I go to order but find I'm unable to purchase because I'm not buying large quantities or have a business. Could you direct me to a company that can compete with the quality od your flash drives please. Rod Fielding 30 Nov, I think you are looking in the wrong place if you want to buy flash drives in low quantities or you want to buy one at a time. This supplier is about selling flash drives intended for promotional gifts and giveaways - printed with logos or sales messages etc.
If your only concern is about quality, you should look for drives from established brand-name manufacturers like Integral a British company or the likes of Verbatim, Philips, Intenso or SanDisk. Search on eBay or elsewhere for 32gb Verbatim, Philips, Intenso - and you will see them offered in the pound price range for that size, which is a good 'bang per buck' size to be choosing.
But, of course, Flashbay is an excellent place to go if you need to source quantities of printed gift items. Jeff Irok 14 Jan, So, what exactly is a "write cycle" no answer found on Google, unfortunately!
Is it simply writing to the drive? Does it start when I put the drive in a USB slot and it's recognized or on power-up if it's already in there and end when I take it off or power down? Something else? The Write Cycle generally refers to the expected life expectancy of a Flash Drive.
More specifically, it refers to the process of uploading and deleting data from your USB Flash Drive. Each of these actions degrades the Flash Drive slightly. High-quality Flash Drives like ours take an extremely long time to degrade. Cheaper Flash Drives will degrade quicker. Many thanks, Gerhard. If your Hard Disk is from a reputable brand, and it's well maintained it should last you many years.
Is there any software available to check on the potential remaining lifespan of a flash drive? My dad has one that is starting to have errors but he is insistent on conti using to use it. We don't offer this service, but there is software out there that can potentially help you. I've listed some options below which can tell you about the general health of your Dad's Flash Drive.
The "lifespan" of a flash drive could also refer to its shelf life: how long the data remains readable after sitting on the shelf unused for a number of years. Answering this question may require a physicist, but I'm fairly certain that the minute electric charges that represent bits on the storage medium will eventually dissipate. Whether this is 10 years or years, there is a theoretical limit to the stability of the data. Sandra 07 Jul, Hi Chris, I am a doting grandmother who loves working with photos of my children and their children.
I began with my first scanner, scanning all of my old print photos, including some of myself from seventy-five years ago, taken by our babysitter! Then I began scanning new prints from my children as I got them. I have noticed several things after nearly 20 years of saving: 1 the CD-stored photos of myself are of higher quality than those of my grandchildren sadly even though they were prints, scanned with an inexpensive scanner; 2 the photos of my grandchildren taken with a pre-digital camera, and scanned, are often better than those taken with a digital camera depending on the camera, of course ; 3 the quality of photos taken with early cellphones was poor for several years, so photos taken in those years are virtually unusable for printing, even with expensive photo software; 4 even the best digital photos taken before my kids began using cellphones lose quality when stored on flash drives and external hard drives; and 5 maybe I'm crazy but I believe even those on DVD are deteriorating can that be?
This is all to say that I have a question: are all of these photos from roughly to present, someday going to look like old Polaroids? Or at best, like the early cellphone photos? You say ten years but I'm talking about will my grandchildren have photos of themselves as toddlers, seventy years from now?
Should I be saving prints made from these photos, to back up the DVDs? Until a couple of years ago, I thought anything saved on an external hard drive was permanent, now I'm worrying about my DVDs.
I'd be very grateful for your thoughts on this, and please forgive my rambling I'm an old woman, what can I say? Sandra M. Sandra M 07 Jul, Thank you, Ron - after writing to you, it occurred to me that the fault may not be in my drives but in my eyes. I had cataract surgery some months ago; I'm thinking that I never saw the noise in my photos until now?
Laugh if you will, I'm certainly laughing at myself. I still believe the digitals are nowhere near the quality of the old cameras, but at least I can stop worrying that they will get worse. And maybe some day the quality of a digital photo will be as good as those from the old cameras of long ago. About ten years ago, a friend loaned me a class photo taken when we were in the fifth grade The size of the photo was no more than 2x3 inches but I was able to blow it up to a beautiful 8x10 after scanning.
Thank you again. I think we're a similar age. I had an eye test a few days ago and was told I have cataracts too - not serious enough for surgery yet, but my day will come. I shall be getting specs now - for the first time - and the photos I look at henceforth might suddenly acquire some extra quality that wasn't apparent previously. Best Wishes Rod. Sandra 08 Jul, About that 'extra quality', I forgot to say that once I had the photo blown up, I was embarrassed to see that I had stuck out my tongue at the camera.
Class photo ruined Good luck with your new glasses! Vic Morelli 14 Jul, I have a laptop that is about 10 years old, that I cannot use because updates to Windows 7 are not available and even when they were I was unable to install them. Can this laptop be used to copy files from an equally old USB drive to a newer USB drive so that I can have a backup ready when the old one expires?
The files are all videos or photos, some of which have lost quality. Rod Fielding 14 Jul, I don't know exactly what problems you might been having with your elderly laptop but if it's working at all - and assuming you have at least one USB port - there should be nothing preventing you from copying a bunch of files from one USB drive to another. If you have two USB ports, you could put one drive in each and copy the files directly.
Maybe open each drive in file manager and drag items from one window to the other. If you have only one USB port, the easiest way to go might be to copy all the files from the USB drive to somewhere on your laptop's hard drive - and then from there to the new drive. I could do it fopr you if you would trust your drive to the post. Rod Fielding 25 Aug, And No, I do not have any finacial or any other kind of interest in the Integral company. I know their products well. Frederick 19 Nov, Hello flashbay team.
I bought a 64 gb 3. Is testing a flash drive consumes too much cycles? This shouldn't affect the life expectancy of your Flash Drive. This assumes that your Flash Drive is from a reputable brand, that uses high-quality parts.
The playback quality should remain at a high level for many years. This assumes that your Flash Drive is made of high-quality parts and that it's stored safely when not in use. Halyn 30 Nov, Nice information here on this site. I'm trying to find out what happens to a flash drive that's been removed and "Eject" wasn't used.
It happened a couple years ago; there was no data transfer ongoing, computer was quiet, but I unplugged the drive when focus was off it.
Yet, the next time I plugged the drive in, it was dead. Tried several programs to look at it, nothing would scan or open anything on it. Chris , Flashbay 02 Dec, Hello, and thanks for the question.
Without having the Flash Drive to hand, it's difficult to say what exactly has gone wrong. However, one possible reason is that the data has been corrupted, which has caused firmware issues within the Flash Drive. Another possible reason is the physical components of the Flash Drive are faulty, but this isn't necessarily related to the eject issue you've mentioned.
Chris , Flashbay 06 Jan, Hello, and thanks for your question. Regarding your first question, the true capacity of these cheaper Flash Drives is often written in the 'small print' on the packaging or the suppliers website. But our advice would be to spend a bit extra on a reputable brand. This ensures you're actually getting the stated capacity, and the Flash Drive won't fail on you after a few uses.
Chris , Flashbay 07 Jan, Hi, Here is some more detail on how untrustworthy suppliers can promote false capacity claims, and how you can determine the true capacity of a Flash Drive.
MBR Master Boot Record is the first and boot sector of a USB Flash Drive, which contains information on how the physical drive is partitioned, the disk capacity and what file system is in use. So if an unscrupulous supplier modifies the capacity information in this sector, the drive will able to fool the Operating System to report a wrong capacity.
There are two popular methods to determine the true Flash Drive capacity: 1 Reformat your Flash Drive, and it will then state the true capacity. It then produces a capacity report stating the true capacity of the Flash Drive. I hope this answers some of your questions. Phil 10 Jan, Hi, I'm looking to use some flash drives to keep copies of important documents mainly notes on books , once I've finished creating these documents I rarely edit or access them, I've noticed a few of them created while I was at uni are now an older file type and new editions of them must be made on MS Word, my concern and question is: how often should I check up on files saved to a flash drive for compatibility with my operating system?
I don't intend to migrate from Microsoft and their Office package. At the moment I'm using OneDrive which offers 1tb, but I'm concerned they may arbitrarily wipe everything with a mere 48 hours notice; hence I'm looking for other backup options. The files you created between should be compatible with your Microsoft Word programme for many years to come, but it's good practice to check on this every few months.
Carlo Maria Mosco 25 Jan, Hi Chris, I've no questions, but I wish to thank you a lot for sharing all the these information, that i found very very useful. Carlo Maria. I am thinking of using HP Pen Drive now. Any recommendations? HP is a reputable brand of Flash Drives and other such hardware. As such, we don't see any issues switching over to them. All of their models are of good quality.
Martin 17 Apr, I'm confused by some apparently contradictory earlier posts concerning the life expectancy of files on an untouched flash drive: 1 Sam Sanchez, Flashbay 22 Feb, : "We reckon at least 60 to 80 years if left in a safe in the perfect environment.
The second point above was posted by the community. This isn't direct advice from us. To clarify the point in question; A Flash Drive will last several years if left untouched. There's no need to use a Flash Drive each month to preserve its quality. This assumes the Flash Drive is manufactured by a reputable brand and that it's kept in a cool, dry environment.
Away from high temperatures and moisture. Terry , Manuka Honey 28 Apr, Many thanks for the most informative and helpful info. Very much appreciated. My question is on security: I store sensitive passwords and info in a good quality flash drive.
After I have accessed and read that information but not transferred or copied it to my PC, is it possible, after I have safely ejected the flash drive for a clever hacker in any way to subsequently view that information - in particular, my passwords?
Put another way, has any info been automatically transferred to my PC which may subsequently be available to view in any way? None of your password information will be transferred from your Flash Drive to your Computer unless you instruct otherwise. When it comes to hard disk drive, what is the most noteworthy about this kind of drive is that it contains moving parts.
Data getting read in such a drive is through a moving arm with a magnetic drive head. Thus, hard disk drive is susceptible to head crash, namely head touching and scraping the drive platter. Various factors can cause such troubles, such as power outage, physical shock, etc. According to related researches, about 5 percent of hard disk drives can fail in the first year, but in such cases, culprit are most probably manufacturing defects.
As usual, a common hard disk drive can last for around 4 years. Although hard disk drive store data magnetically, as long as you keep it away from other magnetic source, this drive is quite stable.
Thus, a hard disk drive is more suitable for long-term storage. Hence, it is immune from head crash and will not be affected by magnets. Since solid state drive is made up by electronics, it is quite vulnerable to power failure.
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