Why do USB thumb drives die all the time?

[gunslinger]

I only use sandisk brand.

 

[Markus]

The only time I have had a flash drive die is when I plugged it into a clients computer that had a bad USB port. My drive was fried, and rather hot when I pulled it out.

 

[Larry Sabo]

It does not shut down the always live 5 & 12V power from the USB port.

USB ports don't have 12v, just 5v, data & ground.

I always caution my customers to not rely on USB flash drives for storage, because of their unreliability.

 

[SAG]

Had a Corsair survivor on my keychain for a few years now... impressed with it.

Had a patriot for 5 years now that gets (almost) daily use. It has been rock solid.

Only ones I've had *go bad* are the ones I get for free and wot-not. Never had one that I paid for fail on me for reasons other than my own sadistic abuse.

Thanks for the tip on the Kangaru drives Jimbo! I just ordered 2 of them.

 

[SilverLeaf]

I carry a Kangaru drive in my pocket all the time. The paint is practically wore off of the case now. The only issue I've ever had is that sometimes the write-protect switch gets engaged whilst jostling around in my pocket. Sometimes it takes a second or two for me to figure out why it mounted read-only

Other than that, I've had great luck with Patriot drives as well.

 

[bertie40]

I use a kangaru for my day2day work.

Daft as it sounds, my primary reason for buying it was the difficulty I had finding a good USB stuck with a physical, hardware, write protect switch.

I couldn't find one in the uk, so I had a couple shipped in from the US.

 

[marianoemilio]

I only use SANDISK and IMATION flash drives. Never had a problem with them.

 

[damitman]

wow, just counted my collection, I have 31 drives from 128mb to 64 gb, adata, transcend, toshiba, crucial, wintec, ocz, sony, lexar, verbatim, all still working. I think i might have a problem, ocd, maybe?

 

[lcoughey]

USB ports don't have 12v, just 5v, data & ground.

I always caution my customers to not rely on USB flash drives for storage, because of their unreliability.

Nice catch...posted the 12V out of habit.