Flash Drive Failures?

[carls365]

Beginning to wonder about these flashdrives, I've had a second one become inaccessible and unless it can be fixed, the data is lost. So, it seems to me it's very risky to put  vital data on them. I was going to put my diary on a flashdrive but not if one day it says "not recognized".

Anyone else had flashdrive problems?

[Richard Myers]

No, Carl, but like other media, they will fail eventually.  I use sd cards for video. They have become very large. The last one I bought was 32 gigs.  If it fails, I lose a lot of video that i can't reproduce. I take it off as soon as I can and back up my files, but if it fails in the field, I lose a lot.  Makes one want to use small cards. Backing up our data is important no matter what media it is on, including flash drives. They work as a backup, but if the primary data source, then it needs to be backed up. I have heard stories about the manufacturing of various drives that has me concerned also, but have not had any flash are card fails yet. I am waiting. Thanks for sharing.

[Won Bae]

Flash drive!  I learned some thing hard way.  This might be a solution for you also.
I backed up my data to a flash drive and gave it to my accountant so that he can look at it in his computer.  I have done it many times.  This time she said she was not able to open it.  Her question to me was "did you click eject at the flash drive icon?" I did not do it.  Now on I make sure I click "eject" before I pull the flash drive out of the computer.

Won

[carls365]

Sorry for the late reply, the title scrolled off the recent comments list and I forgot about it. Yes Richard I'll now make a copy of the flashdrive or perhaps start writing things to CD or DVD. For photos, many I have cannot be replaced like the kittens growing up etc. I've backed them up on CD, DVDs, flashdrive and hard disk itself. Perhaps I'll send copies to one of those cloud storage sites too. (no security concerns, just kitty photos)

Won: I "unmount"  the flashdrive, on my computer it's called "safely remove device".

[Richard Myers]

Carl, I just discovered that DVDs, CDs, are not long lived as I thought.  As early as two years and they ink can fail.  So, we need to even be concerned about our backups.  We need to just remember that they may fail also.

[carls365]

Carl, I just discovered that DVDs, CDs, are not long lived as I thought.  As early as two years and they ink can fail.  So, we need to even be concerned about our backups.  We need to just remember that they may fail also.

I can't wait until we have minds that will never forget anything! even better, we may be able to go back in time like the Lord does.