Why is thumb-drive memory ..............

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It's a slower type of memory. The faster stuff costs more to make.

Flash memory has a LOT lower lifespan as well. It can only have so many
reads and writes before failure. It's a lot, but still a LOT more limited
than standard RAM.
 
Hi Dustin,
Do you have a source for that info. I have much data stored on flash drives
and I'd like to check it out before I panic ;-)
 
I think it's pretty safe to safe Flash drives were never really meant to be
used as long term storage devices. That's est suited for HDDs and DVDs. But
depending some reports says the average could be around 10 years

It varies from Model to model obviously, but I heard the number was around
100,000 writes\erases

Here's is a blurp from OCZ's Rally 2
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Print.aspx?ArticleId=15791

Endurance Factor: is a figure representing the Wear and Life Expectancy of
flash devices; this is obtained by dividing the average performance (normal
condition, i.e. sequential write) to the lowest performance (high-stress
condition, i.e. same block re-write). It measures the relative improvement
of endurance caused by the wear leveling or flash management algorithm; the
absolute endurance of a device (i.e. its expected life-time) is directly
dependent, in addition to this Endurance Factor, on the nominal manufacturer
rating of maximum erase/reprogram cycles, which is typically 100,000+ for
SLC and 10,000+ for MLC devices. (Higher is better, i.e. longer life-time
for the device)

Also
http://www.bellevuelinux.org/flash_memory.html
Flash memory also has another disadvantage. In contrast to RAM and like all
types of EEPROMs, it wears out after a certain number of write and erase
cycles. This is due to the degradation of the insulating oxide layer around
the microscopic cells that are used to store data. Fortunately, however, the
number of cycles in most applications is sufficiently low that this
situation is not frequently encountered

http://www.physorg.com/news4220.html

Samsung is estimating 1,000,000 hours / 1,000,000 write cycles. Most flash
disk producers boast a 10 year life expectancy
 
I have an older 256 MB (it was 250 new, so it's been a while!) from about
2002-2003. I used it quite frequently. It's still going strong. And the
things been in the washer/dryer cycle and still going! (Yea, kids...)

--
Dustin Harper
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.vistarip.com

--
Dale White said:
I think it's pretty safe to safe Flash drives were never really meant to be
used as long term storage devices. That's est suited for HDDs and DVDs. But
depending some reports says the average could be around 10 years

It varies from Model to model obviously, but I heard the number was around
100,000 writes\erases

Here's is a blurp from OCZ's Rally 2
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Print.aspx?ArticleId=15791

Endurance Factor: is a figure representing the Wear and Life Expectancy of
flash devices; this is obtained by dividing the average performance
(normal condition, i.e. sequential write) to the lowest performance
(high-stress condition, i.e. same block re-write). It measures the
relative improvement of endurance caused by the wear leveling or flash
management algorithm; the absolute endurance of a device (i.e. its
expected life-time) is directly dependent, in addition to this Endurance
Factor, on the nominal manufacturer rating of maximum erase/reprogram
cycles, which is typically 100,000+ for SLC and 10,000+ for MLC devices.
(Higher is better, i.e. longer life-time for the device)

Also
http://www.bellevuelinux.org/flash_memory.html
Flash memory also has another disadvantage. In contrast to RAM and like
all types of EEPROMs, it wears out after a certain number of write and
erase cycles. This is due to the degradation of the insulating oxide layer
around the microscopic cells that are used to store data. Fortunately,
however, the number of cycles in most applications is sufficiently low
that this situation is not frequently encountered

http://www.physorg.com/news4220.html

Samsung is estimating 1,000,000 hours / 1,000,000 write cycles. Most flash
disk producers boast a 10 year life expectancy
Click to expand...
 
Ed

Any type of drive, that connects to a computer, should always have a backup,
even flash drives or other types of external drives. There are just to many
unexpected things that can happen to drives when connected to a computer.

I always recommend backing up raw data to DVD disks as the safest,
especially for things that are not reproducible like family photos and
videos, program installation files that were downloaded when purchased, and
other personal data.
 
Yeah, I'm waiting to see if the blurp I read from one of those Microsoft
fellas holds true. He was saying that they designed the whole ready boost
thing, not to kill the flash drives faster than normal. I'm trying to figure
out what normal is, but he contends it will still last 5 years I think.

Given the cheapness of the flash drives, I'd almost say who cares if they
died in 2 years. Along your lines, my first Flash drive was the 1GB, for
around $130. 2 months ago, I got the speedy OCZ rally 2 4Gb for $80. And the
speedy Patroit Xtreme 2GB was $34. And now they have the 16GB for 130. Just
giving them away I say.
 
This makes me wonder what will happen when the first bit wears out? Will it
remap like a hard drive or will one failed bit render the entire drive
unusable?

Dale White said:
I think it's pretty safe to safe Flash drives were never really meant to be
used as long term storage devices. That's est suited for HDDs and DVDs. But
depending some reports says the average could be around 10 years

It varies from Model to model obviously, but I heard the number was around
100,000 writes\erases

Here's is a blurp from OCZ's Rally 2
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Print.aspx?ArticleId=15791

Endurance Factor: is a figure representing the Wear and Life Expectancy of
flash devices; this is obtained by dividing the average performance
(normal condition, i.e. sequential write) to the lowest performance
(high-stress condition, i.e. same block re-write). It measures the
relative improvement of endurance caused by the wear leveling or flash
management algorithm; the absolute endurance of a device (i.e. its
expected life-time) is directly dependent, in addition to this Endurance
Factor, on the nominal manufacturer rating of maximum erase/reprogram
cycles, which is typically 100,000+ for SLC and 10,000+ for MLC devices.
(Higher is better, i.e. longer life-time for the device)

Also
http://www.bellevuelinux.org/flash_memory.html
Flash memory also has another disadvantage. In contrast to RAM and like
all types of EEPROMs, it wears out after a certain number of write and
erase cycles. This is due to the degradation of the insulating oxide layer
around the microscopic cells that are used to store data. Fortunately,
however, the number of cycles in most applications is sufficiently low
that this situation is not frequently encountered

http://www.physorg.com/news4220.html

Samsung is estimating 1,000,000 hours / 1,000,000 write cycles. Most flash
disk producers boast a 10 year life expectancy
Click to expand...
 
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