How long do USB memory sticks last ?

I have had them last just a year, and others (corsair) last 4+ years so far. I would not rely on them for storage long term.
 
I normally lose them before I start having any problems with them, I've got one that's a few years old, has been chewed by the dog and put through the wash but still works fine
 
The cheaper ones have a minimum of 10,000 read/write cycles, whereas a more expensive one can have anything up to 100,000.
 
I did have a Verbatim 2GB thumb drive that just stopped one day, but I had used it a lot so maybe I reached that write limit that gets mentioned.
 
ive have a few i use for work and they go in the washing machine a lot!! and get used every day ona lot of pcs not had a problem yet some are 2 years old one is a scan disk and the other is a kingston :)
 
how long do they last?

they last as long as they are rated to last, i have one that is rated up to 16 gigabytes!

:p
 
Lexar firefly 16Gb inexplicably died within 12 months. Recalls where around that time, so I think it was a bad batch. My replacement has been fine since and has 2 years warranty. :)
 
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Another point is how useful is the safely remove hardware ? i have had a PNY 8Gb stick for over 2 years now and while i don't really use it as often as some ppl it still works fine and i just plug it in copy stuff and pull it out without using this safely remove hardware crap :)
 
Idea: A memory stick with two drives running in a RAID 1 like setup. When one dies, it shows a message to backup immediately. This time next year, we'll be millionaires.
 
Bwaaa said:
Idea: A memory stick with two drives running in a RAID 1 like setup. When one dies, it shows a message to backup immediately. This time next year, we'll be millionaires.
Click to expand...

SSD is pretty much the same thing, if a little faster. RAID 1 ssd isn't hard to pull off, it's just a shame they seem to have so many issues right now though...
 
I've had a few last me a few years but also had a few cheap ones go in less than a year, although I think one of those might have been killed by a case with bad connections I suspect shorted it out.

I think if you get a moderate priced one from one of the decent brands, unless you are constantly writing to it, its likely going to a couple of years whereas the extremely cheap ones might not last so well. Some of the extremely cheap unbranded ones even mess up if you try to use NTFS/non-FAT32 to store larger than 4GB files, which never fills me with confidence.
 
Been using a SuperTalent Pico C 8GB for a couple of years. Great little thing, stays tucked away in the wallet. Not that I used it a lot, it's more of an emergency thing. I woulnd't use a USB drive for anything but temporary data.
 
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