USB Thumb (Flash) Drives for long term archiving?

[NCC]

Well, I've been into computers for 30 years, and been through just about all the archiving "solutions", from cassette tapes to floppies to streaming tape to optical disks, zip disks, external USB HDDs and USB Thumb drives. Things have changed constantly over three decades and I don't expect that trend to end.

For today: For storing modest amounts of important data (16-32GB). I've read that the primary cause of failure for thumb drives is multiple rewrites, and short of that they're extremely reliable (I haven't had one fail on me, yet). Anyone have a clue as to their 'shelf life', or if they have one?

I've had very bad luck with some of the previous archiving media I mentioned above, and spent thousands of dollars on the effort over the decades.

Will a USB Thumb drive be accessible 20 years from now? Most of today's computers don't ship with a floppy drive, it's obsolete due to its miniscule capacity. But, you can still buy a USB external floppy drive (and a USB turntable to play your vinyl).

I don't expect anyone reading this is clairvoyant, just wondering if anyone has any input on this.

 

[notsoogood]

I would imagine it would be like anything else NCC. You can get pretty big thumb drives now (capacity). When they get to the point of being obsolete then you transfer what's on them to the latest and greatest. But then, I'm no computer guru so this may just be a simpleton's idea.

 

[NCC]

Yes, up to 256GB (largest I've seen). But, that doesn't really answer my question..

Is the thumb drive stable over an idle period of 5 to 10 years?

Anyone who has burned a lot of optical disks knows that, even though stored properly, they can fail at random. Perhaps not as often as magnetic media, but they still fail.

There's little question in my mind that, even if USB itself becomes obsolete, that won't be a problem. Just wondering if the thumb drive is trustworthy for archiving important information. I'm thinking it is.

 

[skri11a]

I think the bottom line is, there isn't anything "more" reliable at the moment. As far as I know, it is the rewrite capacity that makes any solid state storage volatile. Iow, notsoogood's thoughts, and yours, are accurate. Keep it in a firesafe, humidity free box and it should survive for 20 years without issue.

Of course, there's no guarantees right?

 

[klamathkid]

In 20 years today's thumb drives will probably as obsolete as floppies are today. But in that 20 years you'll have plenty of warning/opportunity to transfer the data to the "new thing".

What about on-line storage? I would burn it to discs and/or use a thumb drive and also archive on line. However, I cannot archive on line at the present time. I wish I could. I have satellite internet and can only upload 5000MG in a 30-day rolling period.

 

[THE]

I think the storage environment plays a key role in the life span of any data storage medium
Just like there are certain ways you want to store regular paper or cigars

It's would be nice if you could have some kind of permanent storage that did not rely on magnetic fields or however that works. If the data is that important, the best thing you can possibly do is to have multiple backups at multiple sites.

I would imagine that actual pressed discs would be "permanent", but I have no idea of how long the media lasts.

 

[THE]

Yes, up to 256GB (largest I've seen). But, that doesn't really answer my question..

Is the thumb drive stable over an idle period of 5 to 10 years?

Anyone who has burned a lot of optical disks knows that, even though stored properly, they can fail at random. Perhaps not as often as magnetic media, but they still fail.

There's little question in my mind that, even if USB itself becomes obsolete, that won't be a problem. Just wondering if the thumb drive is trustworthy for archiving important information. I'm thinking it is.

By magnetic media you're talking about a tape drive? I think I see what you're saying.

Don't flash drives use magnetics to store data?
I thought that almost everything did.. If not, that is interesting.. I'll have to do some reading because I guess that I was just going on an assumption.

 

[NCC]

@THE: By magnetic media Yes, tape drives, floppy disks, cassettes ... higher quality media's survivability is MUCH longer than the cheap ones. But, they're all subject to degaussing (or magnetic fade) over time, substrate decomposition, stray magnetic fields, heat, moisture ... long list.

Flash drives are solid state EEPROMs (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory), and are not threatened by stray magnetic fields. Optical disks don't store their data magnetically either.

I've done a little digging.and found that data stored on them has an expected 'shelf life' of at least 10 years. While I'm glad to get the number, I'd hoped for longer. That's comparable to a decent quality optical disk.

As skri11a noted, flash drives seem to be as reliable if not moreso than anything else currently available. I have a number of them and think they're great for lots of things. I use one to store mp3s which I plug into my car's head unit and have something like 10 days worth of non-repeating music on one thumb drive ... that's astounding! Inconceivable (to me) 20 years ago.


BTW, I accidentally demonstrated the flash drive's ruggedness by running one through a washer cycle with my jeans. No harm done. I don't know if all makes are waterproof, but that one was.

 

[THE]

So you can't do that EMF thing to someones house and erase all of their media if they've stored it on SSDs or Flash Drives???