Flash Drive Reliability….
I am wondering about the long-term reliability of using Thumb Drives for long term storage as compared to Floppies,(Which the 1.4M makes them obsolete anyway, plus I don't tend to trust them for long-term.), HDD's, CD's, DVD's, Tape backups, etc.
Software/Hardware used:
Software/Hardware used:
ASKED:
March 12, 2008 12:07 AM
UPDATED:
February 5, 2011 10:31 PM
Answer Wiki:
As far as I see I wouldn't trust a floppy disk to carry info across a room let alone to use as storage for a long period of time. They are too sensitive to environmental issues and static electricity. I found this info:
The MTBF for Floppy Disks is typically 30,000h whereby USB Flash Drives typically have a MTBF of 300,000h, which is mainly limited by the insertion cycles. The operating temperature range for Floppy Disk Drives is typically in the range of 5’C to 52’C whereby typically USB Flash Drives operate over a temperature range of 0’C to 70’C
there is a lot more information in the original article:
<a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/7/7/577a5684-8a83-43ae-9272-ff260a9c20e2/USBFlashDrivesWhitePaper.doc">http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/7/7/577a5684-8a83-43ae-9272-ff260a9c20e2/USBFlashDrivesWhitePaper.doc</a>
Tape is still the standard option for long term storage of data. This is because of the large amount of data you can get on a single tape (800GB per tape compressed isn't unheard of). However to store tape for long periods of time you have to keep them in a cool dry room.
I wouldn't want to keep a lot of data on USB thumb drives for long periods of time as remembering what's on which thumb drive will be a pain.
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I agree… though I can’t imagine having a bunch of USB thumb drives laying around to store information on— let alone managing the data on them.
Are DVD/CD’s not an option for you?
Yes, I am able to use CD and/or DVD’s. I am interested in how a Thumb-Drve compairs to the life of CD/DVD’s.
One advantage to using a thumb drive is it’s read-wright capability over a DVD. But, if the shelf life of a thumb-drive is in question I may not want to rely on it.
Thanx.