SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Over the past year or so, I have had an alarmingly high number of USB flash drives fail into "read only" mode. Something like six or more. These varied from cheap Chinese eBay stuff to name brands pretty much equally. So, I got to thinking: How many have failed on me over the last decade or so. Practically none that I can recall. What has changed in manufacture or design that might account for this or is it just coincidental.
I did a search using Startpage, and Duck Duck Go, and didn't find anything that might validate my observations. Please tell me, am I imagining this or is it a real phenomenon? Have any of you noticed increased failure rates of USB flash drives.
There is a motivation to try to get users to migrate from external storage to the cloud. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm strictly VFR. No clouds, low, and slow.
Thanks for any insights you might choose to offer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:49AM
I have an old misbehaving external hd I am in the process of salvaging some files from. A couple of times now I have had to wipe and reformat a drive (both normal and usb) that I copied files to from there. The newer drives failed by becoming "read only".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:55AM (3 children)
Need more information --- are these new USB drives, or old ones? If they are old ones, maybe a flaw that only reveals itself after many years?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:39AM (1 child)
All the other flash drives (both usb and uSD) are optimized for block writes primarily in fat32/exfat formats.
Using NTFS or Ext? on them degrade their performance horribly, and in my experience lead to premature failures on the order of days to hours depending on the filesystem features you have enabled (ordered write only, never allow journal mode!) The secondary issue related to this is limited write speeds.
The Pro Endurance cards are made for both higher sustained write speeds (20mb/s) as well as longer rewritability. They cost between 2x and 4x as much as regular uSD cards however. But the benefit of them in my experience has more than made up for the cost different by eliminating lag on the RPi as its uSD storage, and allowing sustained random access on both Pi, USB adapter, and SD slot on laptops.
Furthermore it hasn't burned out after a few days/hours to even lower levels of performance or bad blocks like the regular uSD cards can, even Samsung's own Evo line of uSD cards.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @09:23AM
https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-378 [transcend-info.com]
https://www.transcend-info.com/product/memorycards [transcend-info.com]
No problems with ext3/4 on these; work as advertised.
Kingston drives on the other hand proved to be shit. Just as described here:
https://www.storagereview.com/kingston_datatraveler_ultimate_gt_usb_31_flash_drive_review [storagereview.com]
BTW, test of 4k writes here worth taking a look:
https://www.custompcreview.com/reviews/roundup-six-usb-3-0-flash-drives-reviewed/ [custompcreview.com]
(Score: 1) by messymerry on Friday February 01 2019, @01:24AM
None of these were new. None of these were particularly old. They are not constantly connected. They are primarily for sneakernet type use. I would guess none of them had more than a hundred or so hours of use...
;-D
Only fools equate a PhD with a Swiss Army Knife...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:09AM
Flash drives have gotten so cheap that they have to be sacrificing quality somewhere in the manufacturing process. Perhaps flash memory that didn't meet the standards for SSDs are being sold to flash drive makers.
They may get to the point that they are like appliances are today. Appliances used to be made to last, but these days you're lucky if they last a few years. The shorter the warranty the lower the quality.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:12AM (3 children)
Was a 128 MB SanDisk. The thing has been through the wringer and laundry (both washer and dryer). Recently rediscovered the thing and plugged it in - still good, though slow as you can imagine.
It's not age, there's something wrong with the quality of flash you're buying.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:24AM
I have a 2MB SDCard from an ancient digital camera. My son puts it in his camera and complains that it only fits one photos on it before running out of space. He knew it was small, since the rest of my cards are like 32GB cards. I'm surprised it even worked at all in a modern camera. He nearly shat his pants when I explained to him that it wasn't just 16 times smaller than a 32GB card, but being mega and not giga it is over 16000 times smaller.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @09:11PM
Same here. My first flash drive lasted years before I lost it. The replacements have an average lifespan of 3-6 months before they die without warning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:09AM
I don't see why it should be slow. You did scrub it didn't you?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:15AM (2 children)
Could your computer have a problem that's hurting them? Maybe 5V too high? Maybe something's writing to them a LOT and you don't know it? (I know that's unlikely because most have an activity LED and you'd see activity, but I had to ask).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:00PM (1 child)
Seconded. I would suspect the commonality in the failures is something they've all been plugged into, and not a manufacturing defect. I've never had a USB flash drive fail, and I have dozens.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:19PM
Yes, same here, lots of various FLASH drives and uses over the years, starting around 1994: SD, uSD, CompactFlash, BIOSes, PCMCIA/PC card/ExpressCard, proprietary camera cards (Sony, Olympus, etc.), Arduino/Raspberry Pi/PC104/BeagleBoard/other SBCs, on and on, and no failures here.
Maybe messymerry has many USB FLASH drives of the same defective batch? Mine are a widespread mix of brands, etc.
Besides +5V, maybe messymerry has an electrostatic discharge (ESD) problem?
The only other place FLASH is vulnerable is repeated rewrites to the same cells. From the WiKi page, "USB flash drives can withstand between 10,000 to 100,000", so maybe somehow something is massively rewriting?
More data needed to solve this one.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:30AM (3 children)
Technology has advanced so that more cells can be constructed out of the same-sized piece of silicon -- the feature sizes get smaller. (Think of how processors have shrunk their feature sizes down from microns (80286) to what's the best there days? 14nm? 12nm?) Fewer atoms are needed to represent a cell.
Also, more data is now stored in each cell (1, 2, 3, or even 4 bits per cell[*])
With less redundancy to store a given data value, things are more susceptible to failure.
[*] See the Wikipedia entry on multi-level cell [wikipedia.org] for an excellent explanation.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:15AM (1 child)
Plus when you use fewer atoms to store the same amount of data, the atoms wear out faster and you end up with atom dust instead of storage media.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:24PM
Yeah that quark powder is a mess, especially this time of year. Sticks to everything like laser toner or those infernal foam packing peanuts.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:14AM
Open-ended question -- how do QA groups at memory manufacturers identify the failure mode at the molecular/layer/cell level when it comes to flash memory?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:44AM (5 children)
I regularly use Linux to back up files to a USB flashdrive or to transfer files to another computer... without a single failure. But... when using the same flashdrive in a Win10 PC, Windows always says there's something wrong with the drive and asks if it should try to repair it. It repaired it even though I didn't want it to, and fucked it up. The same thing use to happen with floppy drives. Ditch Windows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:19AM
Yes, Windows does try to auto fix disks. However, usually it is nice enough to ask before blatting a drive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:10PM (2 children)
Similar situation, though in my case, as I avoid like the plague the OS that is Win10, it's Win7 which mutters dark and terrible things about the USB drives, as I had nothing better to do one day I let it 'fix' the issues it alleged the 2TB portable drive had (full drive, nothing critical that wasn't backed up elsewhere), after a goodly number of hours it reported back 'no problems found'..
I now treat this message when I see it as just another example of Windows bullshittery and ignore it.
(yes, one day it might bite me...)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by EEMac on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:29PM (1 child)
Windows tracks whether the drive was cleanly unmounted or not. If it wasn't manually unmounted (or the computer turned off) before removal, you get the "problems with this disk" message. It doesn't necessarily mean Windows has _actually_ found a problem. It means there _could_ be a problem.
I wish you could safely ignore the message. Unfortunately, the only way to tell the different between a real problem and a fake one is to let Windows check. :-|
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday January 31 2019, @09:56PM
I always ignore this message; simply because if the drive was unmounted improperly and some files were corrupted; what is Windows going to do? magic up some data that is missing and put it back in...I realise some stuff has built in redundancy and may be able to be repaired but most files don't.
I have had this happen a few times over the years; so I always unmount drives these days. Nothing worse then coming back from site where you took a backup and it is corrupted; expecially if the site is hours away and they don't have the ability to email the files.
I really don't need Windows spending a long f'n time scanning a drive to either
a) say no problem found
b) say corrupt files found and they cant be fixed
c) corrupt the drive
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday February 01 2019, @03:03AM
Here's your problem with floppies, and possibly other removable media:
http://www.mpc3000.com/NoVolTrack.htm [mpc3000.com]
Which is why I apply the NoVolTrack fix first thing on every fresh install... cuz I still use the odd floppy now and then.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Appalbarry on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:47AM (3 children)
There's a long standing bug [launchpad.net] in Mint Linux (and I assume elsewhere) that causes USB sticks to be formatted as read-only unless you're root. First filed in 2012, still waiting for a fix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:40PM
Replace /dev/sdd1 with whatever the disk is.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:42PM (1 child)
Isn't this just the OS mounting the drive in read only as a form of protection? I seem to recall that Linux defaults to read only unless you set specific flags...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Appalbarry on Friday February 01 2019, @01:40AM
Expected behaviour is:
1) Joe User sticks USB into computer.
2) Joe User formats USB using Nautilus
3) Joe User can now write files to the USB he formatted two minutes ago.
Instead Joe User is told that the USB is read only, and being just Joe User, is baffled.
In other words, it's assumed that if formats the stick, can also write to it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:36AM (1 child)
Wiggle the connector a bit, and everything goes to hell. With the flash drives it's a coin toss because of that.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:08AM
messymerry said they're readable, so I doubt wiggling the connector will make them writable.
But it's generally a good suggestion; re-seating connectors is too often the cure to a problem. I've repaired many hard drives that developed tarnish on the contacts between the controller board and the disk head amp connector. I'm a big fan of silicone grease on connectors.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:12AM (1 child)
I've been for the shit and giggles running an OS off a flash drive for a few years already. It's a full blown regular debian install (with the noatime mount option, something I definitely use on regular hard disks as well to minimize I/O).
Yes, it's slow as molasses but works fine. This USB has done a lot of writes but still keeps kicking. It's a 8 GB stick. I half expected it to die in a couple of months but no.
I would concur with others, alot new stuff is just shit quality.
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Friday February 01 2019, @01:50AM
I use flash drives with Openwrt/LEDE. Granted they’re little OSes, I’ve been going a few years on one of those disks.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:22AM
Unexplainable death of flash drives.
I just thought the whole market was flush with crap quality components top to bottom
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Thursday January 31 2019, @12:36PM (2 children)
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Write Exhaustion yet. If the drives are old, or you've used them "improperly", it's possible that you've just written them to death. It's hard to tell how many writes you can do on most USB Flash Drives, but probably not very many (maybe a single drive write per day?). A good drive will fail to read-only in that scenario. Unfortunately, most USB drives don't give you write counters or anything useful (like a SATA/SAS/NVME drive would), so usually at that point you'd just throw it out and buy a new one.
Really, the more important question is why are you using USB Flash Drives like this today? Can you not just transfer files over the network? I'm transferring files between my laptop and servers all day long and I just use scp, no cloud involved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:18PM (1 child)
In the end, you have to store them somewhere. And for backups, it is a good idea if that somewhere is offline when not currently doing a backup or restore.
Well, I still prefer spinning rust for that purpose, but the idea of using Flash drives is not that far-fetched.
Moreover, you might have a computer that you intentionally don't connect to the network. In that case, USB sticks are the easiest way to transfer data from/to that computer.
(Score: 1) by doke on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:43PM
USB thumb drives are good way to keep important documents in a safe deposit box.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:06PM
Virtually all the "name brands" you find in stores literally just rebadge "cheap Chinese eBay stuff". A lot of the companies you see do not actually make their own designs, and even the ones that do sometimes sell rebadged crap on the low cost lines. Sometimes you can even buy buy 3 identical-looking memory sticks at the same time for the same price from the same "name brand" and you will actually have 3 completely different designs (-> different quality) inside the cards!
This actually makes it pretty annoying to find good flash sticks because very often the label has no relation to the quality of product you are buying: you're just getting whatever they happened to find in Shenzhen that week, wrapped in a pretty package.
One trick that seems pretty good is to only buy memory sticks from companies that manufacture their own memory. For example, since Samsung manufactures their own memory you can be reasonably confident that Samsung-branded memory sticks have exclusively Samsung-made components in them. This should make it more likely that the experience with a particular product (good or bad) should at least be consistent. Wikipedia has a reasonable list [wikipedia.org].
Even still, it can also be important to buy only from reputable distributors as there is a lot of counterfeit parts in this industry as well...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 31 2019, @04:27PM
I would be surprised, if the fail rate has increased to an alarming number across the board. More likely is that you're abusing them in some fashion or you've just got a few lemons. That being said, you didn't mention how old the flash drives were when they died. A flash drive that dies after a couple years of heavy use, wouldn't be terribly surprising. Assuming you're making heavy use of a flash drive, it would be in your best interest to spread that use out over multiple flash drives and / or replace it/them yearly. Assuming, casual use, I wouldn't expect that sucker to die for years.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday January 31 2019, @04:34PM
From my very limited sample size, and all the error that implies, I find the failure rate of cheap flash drives high, but have been fairly constant or if anything has gone down. The expensive ones have always seemed to fare better, but I wouldn't say that it justifies the price difference to me, just buy 3 cheap ones and you will still pocket a difference. Personally I just take the name if not the techniques from RAID, everything is duplicated, and preferably on different types of media (paper, optical, magnetic, flash).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fraxinus-tree on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:25PM
Good flash media die becoming read-only. Bad flash media die losing data. That said, I haven't had a flash media to die on me for a while (~7 years?) - be it server or desktop SSD, usb flash or uSD. They are either bad from the start (i/o errors, silent data corruption or random disconnects from the bus - well, I live in a place where vendors intentionally dump substandard production runs), or just work forever (at least until they become impractical due to low parameters). I have 2 dashcams that are powered 7/24 and their uSD's already have 2 years constant 2MByte/s write in whatever atmospheric conditions the cars happen to suffer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:42PM (3 children)
Not similar to the OP but why not have a rant..
A while back I was away for work and realized I had left my flash drive at home; so I went and paid FULL PRICE WTF for a 32GB USB3 sandisk flash drive.
Turns out that I didn't need it; but you always need one when you don't have one.....
So a few days later I plugged it into my laptop and it just wasn't working; connection was dropping and remounting etc.....it was a mess; I thought maybe it is a bug in the Linux USB3 driver; so I tried it on Windows; same issue. So I then assumed that obviously a dud drive; I wasn't going to drive a few hours to take it back so it sat on my desk for a month or so.
One day unthinkingly I picked it up and plugged it into a USB extender I have; it only supports USB2; the drive worked perfectly if a bit slow; I tested writing a 20GB VM image to the drive; no issue; where before anything bigger then 100MB wouldn't make it before it disconnected itself.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @01:56AM
Probably not related but... Most USB drives are already formatted, and some have a small hidden partition. The first thing I do is wipe the partitions and reformat.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:46AM (1 child)
USB3 is flakier than USB2, the connection is just not physically as good. Downgrading the connection to USB2 can revive a lot of USB devices. Also, it's often the port, not the device. Combine this with the RF problems and USB3 is just not a very reliable technology.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Friday February 01 2019, @03:52AM
A lot of the early USB3 stuff itself was also a bit flaky and didn't adhere well to the standard. Or in some cases in order to be quick on the market they weren't built using the final standard and it shows.
Same thing happened with the original USB too, a lot of the stuff pre-iMac is pretty spotty. With the iMac it had to work right because there really wasn't any other option on those.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:43AM
It's possible to reprogram a flash drive so it looks like it has more space than it does. This is cheaper than actually making the drive bigger. When the drive tries to write to nonexistent space, it freaks out and dies or switches to read only mode.
The cheap eBay stuff is most prone to this but it can even happen with name brand. Sometimes someone in the factory steals the real flash and substitutes it with fake. Usually you are safer with drives that you buy from a reputable store, and safer still if they are Samsung or Toshiba.