Endurance of USB Sticks

[harerod]

I assume that my Google-fu is bad, but the best info I found by the manufacturer, regarding the endurance of a "Transcend's JetFlash 930C flash drive", is a bit weak:

https://www.transcend-info.com/product/usb-flash-drive/jetflash-930c

"With its high-quality 3D NAND flash and USB 3.2 Gen1 interface, Transcend's JetFlash 930C flash drive offers advanced technology translating into top performance of 420MB/s read and 400MB/s write speeds, as well as advanced durability. Move your gaming files in a flash!"

I use that stick as an example, since I just happen to have a couple of JetFlash 930C 512GB working as storage on a tiny server. (Raspi3, ext4)
Side note - my write load on those sticks is quite low, several tens of MiB's per day.

Before I contact the manufacturer - could anybody help me with the following questions, please:
- is there "professional" endurance data (erase cycles, data retention) available for that item?
- how advanced is the memory controller inside that stick? I don't expect to see overprovisioning. However, does the controller mark defect blocks. This would be tough during normal operation, since it would require interaction with the filesystem/host OS.
- does the memory controller at least do wear leveling? If yes, I'd be curious how that is done transparently to the host/file system.
 
Are there other sticks available where those properties are documented?

Update: I forwarded the issue to Transcend technical support on Sept, 11. Let's see, if, when and how they
respond.

Update2 - their reply: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/endurance-of-usb-sticks/msg5057341/#msg5057341

[mikeselectricstuff]

There are a few suppliers of "industrial" memory products - they may spec things better to justify the "industrial" price tag

[David Hess]

In my experience all USB sticks have poor reliability and endurance, however Swissbit does give DWPD (drive writes per day) specifications for their various USB sticks, but they are not inexpensive.  Transcend's embedded products specify TBW (terabytes written).

https://www.swissbit.com/en/products/nand-flash-products/usb-products/
https://www.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/embedded-flash-solutions

[harerod]

David,
your link to Transcend is for older products. The current product (see link in my initial post) doesn't clarify endurance, wear leveling, etc..  However, you you have seen that info for "Transcend's JetFlash 930C" - that would be great.

[Someone]

David,
your link to Transcend is for older products. The current product (see link in my initial post) doesn't clarify endurance, wear leveling, etc..  However, you you have seen that info for "Transcend's JetFlash 930C" - that would be great.

https://www.transcend-info.com/product/usb consumer range
https://www.transcend-info.com/Embedded/Product/flash#USBFlashDrives non-consumer range
It's not older, they're completely different markets/categories. As both posters above said you need to buy a non-consumer drive to get those sorts of guarantees.

[David Hess]

For reference the typical endurance of QLC, TLC, and MLC SSDs are 200, 400 to 600, and 2500 writes.  Those Swissbit MLC drives might be 3500 writes so consistent with that.  The JetFlash 282T drive works out to about 600 which is consistent with a TLC SSD.  I know from personal experience that typical consumer grade USB sticks achieve nowhere near this level of performance.

I would prefer that they specify endurance in bytes written, which when divided by the capacity gives the number of complete writes.  But instead they had to come up with writes per day in order to obfuscate things.

Some SSDs like the Intel S4510 and Kingston DC500M are TLC, or say they are, but are rated for a much greater number of writes, like 10 times more, so I do not know what is going on there.  Maybe it is the difference between consumer and datacenter stuff.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Has anyone ever come across a USB drive with a read endurance rating?
Very large numbers of reads can cause "read disturb" errors in NAND flash, and I've seen this in testing raw NAND chips with no ECC, and noticed, with a very small sample size, that  SLC was much better than MLC but I've never seen it quantified anywhere.

[harerod]

Well, here is the reply from their tech support:

"Dear Mr. Harerod, 
thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a uniform statement here, as the USB-stick is an article of our consumer series.
Articles of our consumer series can differ between individual series without warning, however, harmless for the end customer, should you need advice, please feel free to contact us by phone.  All the information we can provide you with can be found here:
https://uk.transcend-info.com/product/usb-flash-drive/jetflash-930c
https://cdn.transcend-info.com/products/images/modelpic/1185/Transcend-JF930C_202302.pdf
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your understanding.
Best Regards
 xxx

"
The links are the same as provided in my initial post. The reply boils down to "we are not willing to give you any any information beyond our marketing chaff". Noted.

[harerod]

Let's leaf through their industrial catalog:

https://www.transcend-info.com/industrial_ecatalog/#page/45

https://us.transcend-info.com/embedded/product/embedded-flash-solutions/jetflash-282t

https://shop.transcend-info.com/Product/Buy/jetflash-282t
<- $280 for 512GB in their Chinese shop, the same size 930C should be around $75 (€72 at amazon.de) 

@mikeselectricstuff:
https://us.transcend-info.com/embedded/technology/read-disturbance <- this and other technological info can be found on the 282t's product page

[Someone]

So you want industrial product support, quality, and guarantees, but don't want to pay for it? What makes you special?

[Infraviolet]

I could swear modern high capacity USB sticks have worse reliability and lifespans than old ones. I've 32GB USBs bought in 2012 which are still working great, and yet USBs manufactured in the last few years fail in just a few months of minimal usage.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I could swear modern high capacity USB sticks have worse reliability and lifespans than old ones. I've 32GB USBs bought in 2012 which are still working great, and yet USBs manufactured in the last few years fail in just a few months of minimal usage.

Welcome to the Race To The Botttom

[harerod]

Maybe Someone had a bad day? 

Don't you feel that there may be a gradient between accepting "advanced durability" as the only endurance specification for a device that is known for underlying wear and

So you want industrial product support, quality, and guarantees, but don't want to pay for it? What makes you special?

My question shouldn't make me special in an electronics forum. Even more, it was an open question to invite anybody to share their knowledge about current USB stick technologies.
I found the info about Transcend's industrial line quite interesting and mikeselectricstuff brought the topic of read disturbance to our attention.