Among the solutions, a USB flash drive (also known as USB Stick or flash drive) seems to be the perfect solution to store our data quickly, easily and cheaply. A flash drive doesn’t have any moving parts, so it’s more resistant to mechanical impacts, such as bumps, bumps, or even scratches, than a CD or hard drive.
But how long will our data stay on the flash drive? To answer this question, it is useful to know the physical structure of the device.
The flash drive stores data in memory cells in the form of binary values (zeros and ones). Memory cells store these values and data in the form of a type of trapped electrons. These are also called floating gates. This type of solution is excellent for storing large amounts of data and reading it quickly. However, this type of storage solution has a major drawback, which is that the trapped electrons begin to “leak out” over time. This can cause data corruption as it becomes increasingly difficult to read whether the specified binary value represents a one or a zero.
The lifespan of data on a flash drive can be affected by several factors.
The quality of the electronics, memory, and overall build of a flash drive plays a big role in this. In most cases, cheaper models also have a shorter lifespan, although their use value, i.e. the speed of writing and reading files from the pen drive, is also low.
Another factor is the number of write cycles, which describes how often and how many times data can be written and erased. As the number of write cycles increases, the probability of data corruption increases. Last but not least, use in extreme temperatures and unfavorable storage conditions also play a role in the life of a flash drive.
The first commercially available flash drive was released in 1999 as a Trek 2000 International product, called Thumbdrive, so in the time that has passed since then, considerable experience has been accumulated regarding the average lifespan of devices. Based on this, we can say that under ideal conditions, data on a high-quality USB flash drive will last for 10 years on average, or even longer.
However, this does not mean a suitable solution for long-term storage.
Pen drives have so many problems that they are not suitable for long-term data storage. The solution may be to use optical CDs or DVDs, which prove to be a better alternative.
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