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thumbdrive lifespan

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Anonymous (not verified)
thumbdrive lifespan

I hear that the the life is drained with every write to the drive.

With apps like thunderbird (writing lots of mail) on my 1gb memorex traveldrive, even though i have a 2 year warranty, i'm curious if anyone know's how long a drive will typically last?

-Joe

John T. Haller
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Check your

documentation. It's usually 1,000,000 writes. And most drives space that out over the drive. The only things that would be bad would be to enable a web browser's cache, for instance.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Dan2552 (not verified)
well, not particularly

well, not particularly counting how much i've used it, but my 128mb usb flash drive has lasted 2 or 3 years now

stacoma
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Thumbdrive lifespan

My 256MB SanDisk lasted about 4 years before it gave out (would work for about 10 seconds after each time plugging it in, then
*pfft* >:-| )

Goes without saying, but make sure to backup your drive once you have all the apps setup how you want it, then at your discretion after that for whatever data you keep on it, and whenever programs get updated (some of the lesser one's rarely do). I happened to do this one week before my USB drive gave out. Made setting up the new 512MB SanDisk much easier.

I don't use all of the applications that often as some are meant as a backup (to me), like using Portable AbiWord only when I don't have access to Office. Portable Firefox I use often, but sometimes when I am doing routine, non-sensitive things, I will just use the computer's Internet Explorer browser. I just balance out my usage and not run the thumbdrive just because I can, but because I need to.

jimjams
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I have my verbatim 2gb from

I have my verbatim 2gb from july 2005 and I use it for everything, I have no apps installed on my company PC...
Will notify when it will stop working...

Deuce
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Joined: 2005-12-24 16:32
I have a PNY

I have a PNY 128MB Atache drive that has lasted for at least 2 years now.(Don't remember exact date I bought it) and I use it heavily. I just bought a 1GB and transfered everything to that, My 128 is now my test drive for portable apps, and stuff I just need to drag from pc to pc.

But still in perfect shape.

Deuce

"Portable Software: Just the beginning..."

Deuce
Portable Software: Just the beginning.

wsterntime (not verified)
Mine lasted 4 months

I have/had a 1GB micro Sandisk that I had loaded with all the wonderful portable products that are available now, I also used it extensively as a resource to carry passwords, websites, documents etc that were important to me. Alass the other day my computer shut down unexpectedly causing a read/write error with windows and all my data got corrupted. I purchased a recovery program to get as many of my documents back that I could but not all could be recovered. The Cruizer is now capuut, you can't format it, delete anything on it, copy to it NOTHING. So I guess the reason I really posted this was to let everyone know that it is VERY important to backup our portable units daily if needed. Fortunatly I only have two days to catch up on.

random guy
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wow only 4 months. i think

wow only 4 months. i think i am seeing the average being 2 years here. basically like that other guy said, use it when you need it, not when you just can, sometimes i dont put files on my drive and just email them to myself but i am not afriad to put things on my drive: that is what it is for, that is why i bought it right? nothing lasts forever, not even hard drives (although they do last a lot longer than these flash drives). basically in 2 years or so the amount of memory on your drive will be considered very low and you would want to upgrade anyway.

nm35
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My old PNY Attache 128MB

My old PNY Attache 128MB drive just gave out, so I replaced it with a brand-new one. Fortunately I had a backup.

~nm35 {blog} {standalone apps}

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