Products > Computers
let's face it: usb-sticks are not reliable
onsenwombat:
--- Quote from: golden_labels on July 29, 2022, 02:13:05 am ---
--- Quote from: onsenwombat on July 28, 2022, 02:02:56 am ---Every single media will fail. Eventually. If your data is actually vital, it makes little to no difference whether we're talking about HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks, DVDs, DAT-tapes or whatever. Each and every one of them has premature failures under their belts. You may not have, at least yet, had any, but that hardly means it could not be just around the corner. That's why all important data has at least 2 copies.
--- End quote ---
By putting it that way, you are removing probability from the view. Even worse, in this particular case it becomes a degenerate distribution. While certainly true, it’s also delivering no useful information. It’s similar to dismissing a discussion on the effects of smoking by saying that we’re all going to die.
Our beloved entropy makes sure things will break, but they do not break at the same rate or in the same way. It also matters if you have backups. Even more so, because with multiple copies you have exponential decay at play. That is: less reliable media are coming out as even worse in comparison to more reliable ones, if you have multiple backups.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I deliberately did leave probabilities out of the equation, and there's few reason for that. Firstly, I don't possess sufficient knowledge to give reliable rankings for any medias, and secondly, it pains me to see when people take whatever rated lifetimes, MTBFs or their purely anecdotal numbers as some kind of a baseline, and then are in shock when the probability works as probabilities do, i.e. you might get the short end of the stick as well.
golden_labels:
Hardly any of us can! Available data is from sources having a history of providing misleading data (producers) or not being able to offer comprehensive coverage (third party research). :D
However, sometimes the differences in reliability are so high that it can be seen with a naked eye. That’s at most a good estimate and not a proper scientific claim: on that would I agree. But it’s not that we should reject such claims in everyday life in absence of better options.
Given we can see how much more often USB sticks fail in common usage compared to e.g. HDDs or tapes, and that different estimates converge to that value with increasing sample size, we can make a conclusion this is much less reliable medium. And even place it roughly in “I do not want to use it for general backup purposes” range, though of course no more accurate estimate can be given. Consider that that’s an argument not weaker than ones that put an end to Aristotelean theory of gravity.
And, I will repeat if you missed earlier posts, I myself do use USB sticks for backup purposes. Just… that’s a special scenario.
nigelwright7557:
I usually buy good quality flash drives but in a fit of madness bought in a cheap one off ebay.
I backed up my pc to it.
Checked the files were on the drive ok and all was well.
I then had to get a backup of a project folder I had messed up.
Loaded files from flash drive to hard drive.
All the files were there but empty !
Had to rewrite the software project from scratch....
I just buy Lexar drives now as they seem most reliable although not the cheapest.
I use a M.2 512GB drive on my pc.
I try to keep it 25% empty to stop thrashing the same area's of the drive continuously.
tooki:
--- Quote from: nigelwright7557 on September 27, 2022, 12:08:14 pm ---I usually buy good quality flash drives but in a fit of madness bought in a cheap one off ebay.
I backed up my pc to it.
Checked the files were on the drive ok and all was well.
I then had to get a backup of a project folder I had messed up.
Loaded files from flash drive to hard drive.
All the files were there but empty !
Had to rewrite the software project from scratch....
I just buy Lexar drives now as they seem most reliable although not the cheapest.
--- End quote ---
Your data loss wasn’t due to unreliability as such, but rather due to outright fraud: those vendors install a small flash memory chip (so that quick tests succeed) but program the controller to report a wildly exaggerated capacity, such that if you fill the disk, the vast majority of data gets “copied” to memory that doesn’t exist! There’s software out there to test for this fraud.
Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: tooki on September 28, 2022, 10:31:51 pm ---Your data loss wasn’t due to unreliability as such, but rather due to outright fraud:
--- End quote ---
Thank you. So much normalization now for accepting things that are not only defective, but deceitful. >:(
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