USBs -what puts wear & tear on memory sticks

jensenajob22

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I am told that USB are 'worn' when they are being used. anyone knows something about this?
Especially- what actions is most damaging to the stick.

Br.
 

essellar

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Flash memory has a "write life". Without getting into the physics behind it, that means that you can only write data to the "cells" (the individual memory locations) so many times before the cells stop responding correctly. Reading data from the flash memory has almost no effect; you can often read data perfectly from flash memory that can't be written to anymore.

It's not writing more data to the key that does the damage, it's writing to the same cells. Like a hard drive, when you delete a file (normally), the file isn't really deleted, it's just "forgotten" (the index entry telling the system where to find the file is changed). Until the drive starts to get pretty full, new data is written to "fresh" locations. It's only when there isn't enough "fresh" space that the old space starts to get re-used.

So the overall picture is this: if you keep the USB key nearly full and change the files a lot, you will wear out the cells quicker. If the USB key is only ever partially full, or if you mostly read files from the key and rarely write to it, it should last quite a while. If you write once, then do nothing but read after that, the key will (theoretically) last until it's physically damaged. (That said, you should always have at least two copies of important data in two different places.)

You should note that the number of write cycles that flash can undergo has increased dramatically over the past few years, to the point that it is practical now to use flash-based solid-state disk drives (SSDs), even in high-activity data center servers. That doesn't necessarily mean that your $9.99 4GB USB key is going to be that reliable--there's a reason why a 128GB SSD costs more than 128GB worth of USB sticks--but it will probably be a lot better than the $150 256MB USB key that you could buy six or seven years ago.
 

theone48

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As always, essellar proves to be a fountain of knowledge. I've noticed these memory devices have been getting smaller and smaller and bigger in capacity. Imagine 16 GB in a little MicroSD chip smaller than a fingernail? Unmentionable back in the day.
 

Darkmere

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Heh ... I remember when they said a Computer would never use more than 640K Ram. My first Hard Drive was a 72 meg lol
 

theone48

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ha ha Darkmere, my first 'computer', if you could call it that, had I think 100k memory. Can't find the manual right now and it's not written on the machine so can't verify. 25 years old, but it still works though. which is more than I can say for it's newer successors.
 

Darkmere

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lol yeah my first comp was a 64K Ram Tandy ... and it still works too. Gave it to my children so they can play around with programming
 

theone48

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Mine's a Brother. lol, it is amazing, because of their simplicity, there was little to go wrong in those machines, hence the longevity. If we could only duplicate that for our modern workhorses!

PS- sent you a friend invite Darkmere.
 

jensenajob22

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Thanks you essellar - very good explanation, i use usb as hd on a tv-set-top-box, and i surpose this mean that i will wear the drives out pretty fast - :/
I have had read errors and have to formate pretty often
I was told that formatting to FAT32 put less 'wear' on the drive than using NTFS?
Has to do with the way the tables are maintained.. ?
Br.
 

Darkmere

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FAT32 and NTFS are just FATs ... from what I read NTFS is a lot more stable than FAT32. People also complain that FAT32 slows down Drive reads as you fill the drive up as well ... not sure if it holds water but I use NTFS
 

essellar

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On a large drive (and almost all drives are "large" compared to what FAT32 was designed for) NTFS uses smaller allocation units (the smallest "blocks" of space that it can divide the drive into). FAT32 has a fixed maximum number of allocation units that it can handle, so the larger the disk, the larger the blocks are. That means that a 1KB file will take up, say, 4KB on an NTFS drive, while it might take up 64KB or more on a FAT32 drive. A 65KB file would take up 68KB on NTFS, but 128KB on FAT32. FAT32 is statistically less likely to cause fragmentation with frequently-updated files, since every file is likely to have a large amount of white space in its final block, but NTFS is better able to handle fragmentation when it occurs.

The reason for formatting removable drives as FAT32 is that it's readable and writable by more operating systems and devices. NTFS is the file system for Windows NT-based operating systems (WinNT, Win2000, WinXP, Vista, Win7, etc.); it is not natively readable by a vanilla Linux distro or older Macs (or other devices, like your set-top box). FAT32 is pretty much universal since the late '90s.
 

jensenajob22

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@ Darkmere uhoh i have the direct oposite results in respect to 'slow' drives
if i record video on a NTFS stick, i cant use timeshift at all - if i use a fat32 stick timeshift is flawless, but significantly less can be recorded. -oc cause that can and will be HW dependend behavior
Br.
 

leafypiggy

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Downfall of Fat32 - It can't write over a certain amount. It will just say the drive is full.

There's enough drivers out there for NTFS that you should just be using it defaultly. It's supported natively by windows, and every linux flavour + Mac OS X has the NTFS 3G Driver available
 

Smith6612

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Short of the heat some of the USB drives create, which can cause a decrease in life, you're more likely to kill a Flash disk by constantly writing data to it. As long as you do not mistreat the drive or damage the USB Male connector, it should last for a lot of years.
 

jensenajob22

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@ leafypiggy
i dont use the drive on a pc -its on a settopbox for tv-recording, so i cant change drivers, but depends on the firmware installed in the settopbox (mpeg4) - and thats kind of an other isue with video-recording. old hd recorders gave 'quality-option' settops does not - eg the recordings are of exelent quality, but eats the drives as they were paid to do so (1 gb == 45-50 mins), so a 4 gb usb is eaten in no time - over and over and.. ;/
well you get the picture

@ Smith6612
i hope they will last for long time :D , but im not sure :/
record and re-record is the worst usage pattern and thats whats done on a drive used ad a video hd

Br.
 
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Smith6612

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So is it just the file system?

The File Systems has some things to do with how much Wear and Tear Memory sticks will get, but for the most part it isn't anything really significant. There's a reason as to why FAT/FAT32/exFAT are used on removable media, and that is to reduce Wear and Tear and also allow for virtually universal compatibility.
 

zeldaprajihd45

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well i heard somewhere that if you put a USB close to a strong magnet its cells work again never tried it but might be useful for someone to try with a ruined usb
 
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