Ok, I am new to the whole USB flash drive thing, but needed a good one to transport and store files for back up, so a friend of mine recommended a Verbatim Store N Go 4gb drive, as he said he has had his for 3 years, and no problems, plus he likes the limited lifetime warranty. Anyhow, I bought one, and have used about 1gb alone worth of apps. I write to the drive maybe a few times a week, but I mostly just use it for the apps, as read only. I had heard that flash drives can generally get about a million write/erase cycles before a drive goes bad, but just curious as to how long they usually last? I know they are the big thing now, and they eventually will die, but as with any computer equipment, it's not built to last forever. If you can give me an idea about how long a good one like this will last, please let me know. Thank you.
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Given how new USB capasities grow and new USB drives are released - I'd be surprised if the drive you've got wore out before it became obsolete!
It's just scare tactics...
According to this Corsair FAQ PDF: USB Flash Wear-Leveling and Life Span, 10,000 write cycles means more than 10 years. Probably your Verbatim would last just as long.
The thing to worry about isn't lifetime. Your needs will change long before the drive goes out, so you'll invariably update. Also, it's been said that the USB connector goes out before the flash memory itself does.
What you really want is speed. The faster the drive, the better it will perform. Firefox and VLC Media Player are both very demanding; so is OpenOffice.org and The GIMP. Corsair and OCZ are both reputed to be very fast, and I am happy with the two Corsairs I have owned. I had a SanDisk and not only was it built very weak, it wasn't very fast, either, and it died within a year. This was one of the common ones you see where the USB connector slides out. Walmart used to sell them very cheap (for good reason).
Can't say as I've ever seen a Verbatim flash drive, but frankly, I wouldn't get anything but Corsair. They're as cheap as, sometimes cheaper than the PNY drives Walmart carries, and often have free shipping on Newegg. Let's see... I paid $11 for my 4GB drive and $30 for my 16GB drive.
Interesting comment, any idea how any insertions USB connectors are they're good for?
Your comment on the VLC Media Player doesn't sound right - why would it be demanding at all? Pulling video off a USB drive fast enough to watch it should be fine at USB speeds (USB 2 at least - 1.1 might be a problem)
Firefox isn't "demanding"; I think that's probably just a poor choice of words - though from one of the posts below, it sounds like it's reading a hell of a lot off the drive to start up - 30-75 SECONDS to load up?!! WTF?! Someone badly needs to look into fixing that - it sounds like Firefox is only technically "portable"; in practice it's pretty unusable if it's got that kind of speed.
I think I've just found out what the problem is with firefox! (moved to separate thread here)
jamcomm, seriously can we stop with the posts with the random capitalizations, strongs, ems, exclamation points and repeated characters in words. We're all getting tired of it. We're all here to get real work done. If you'd like to assist and post useful things, please do.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
for the connector said 500 insertion cycles
!!!
But some of the connectors say officially 1500 insertion cycles, kind of depends on manufacturer. Some of the recently on market connectors made just of PCB tracks will last abt those 500, the more decent once could do more then 5000.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
means for single level nand flash rather then for multilevel nand flash. Those sticks with single level flash will be in general bigger in size, more expensive and will be faster in *write* and read. Those made of multilevel flash might be fast in read, but much slower in write and will be smaller, cheaper but much less reliable.
Not all manufacturers do declare what chips they use. Those who do, often are more expensive once. If you find such with some 10-25 years of warranty, well those are probably single level nand chips. will cost something however.
If you get things from cheap charlie store or 1$ ebay offer, well you will certainly get multilevel chips. Reliability is here still very much measurable. With a 16gb stick of the cheap variety you might get 'chk' files upon running skandisk on them again and again, sometimes loose some data etc, with the single level chips you will get lost files only if you really want to, namely pulling the stick out while it is writing something to the stick etc.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
I hope it will last me a long time. I also have an American made Dane-Elec 2gb zMate pen flash drive that I had used solid many, and I mean many times a day, and bunches a week, for almost 3 months solid, and it still runs extremely fast when I use it! Have done lots & lots of write/erase cycles, I guess my concern should be fragmentation, but I read you should never ever defragment a fash drive, as it dosent work. My verbatim is good speed, but the Dane-Elec is faster in both read and write speed, and if the local electronics express carried a 4gb Dane-Elec, I would have bought one of those. The Verbatim is good cause I like the retractable usb connecter, as the Dane-Elec has a removable cap, which really didnt matter cause the drive stayed in my computer 90% of the time. Anyhow, I was curious to see how long they would last, and I really do hope it lasts until the next big thing comes out. Thanks for the help! I know that these things can give up the ghost at anytime, so I guess thats why I am curious.
Jason
I sure am late to the party here. In my case I have been wondering how much difference a fast usb drive makes when running PortableApps?
My 8Gb mini Cruzer seems very slow. It can take 30 to 75 seconds to load Firefox 3.5.2, and this is without it checking for addons, etc.
Now I am contemplating the Corsair Voyager GT, for the OCZ Rally2 Turbo. I can only find the Voyager GT in a 16Gb size and I really only need 8Gb.
Dana
It shouldn't make any difference - except when loading the software up.
I haven't tried firefox myself, and if it's takes 30-75 seconds to start up, I don't think I'll even bother trying! Now that really is crap performance - it's practically unusable if it's going to take that long!!!!
I think I may have found out what the problem with firefox is.
"9MB download / 27-77MB installed"
77MB is a lot of data to drag off a USB drive - and would explain it.
EDIT: I've moved this to here
Larger drives are typically slower as well. For optimum use, i'd recommend OCZ or Corsair in the 4-8GB sizes. I've had a 16GB and 8GB Corsair flash drives, of the same model, and the speed difference between to two was quite surprising. The 8GB was much faster.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
The price of the Voyager GT or OCZ Rally2 Turbo put me off... but I guess you get what you pay for.
Not only does Firefox load slowly it usually takes at least five seconds to respond to a click. I'm going to dig out my old 4Gb micro Cruiser and see how it performs. My 8Gb is apparently a dog, a very bad dog.
Well... I just installed Firefox 3.5.2 on my old 4Gb Sandisk micro Cruzer. It loaded in about five seconds. I think the first thing I need to look at, now that I think about it, is the number of add-ons I have in FireFox that I am running on the 8gb Cruzer. That seems a likely source of slow loading times I am seeing... that or a defective thumb drive.
By the time your USB Flash Drive gives out on you, you will be able to buy a new USB Flash Drive that is larger for the same price, if not cheaper, than the original one. The lifespan of a Flash Drive entirely depends on the use of it. Do you use it a lot? Are there a lot of read/writes to the disk? I read somewhere that a flash drive has ~10,000 read/writes before it's trash. I do not know if that is true or not. Just be sure that you do not defragment your flash drive. That will significantly reduce its lifespan.