Are flash drives reliable for storing photos and documents?

[atikovi]

I have about 16GB of photos and documents to store outside my computer in case the hard drive dies. Currently I keep copies on an old external hard drive, on two older laptops, and on a 16GB flash drive that is maxed out. I just picked up a 32GB one to replace it. At $11, are they a good place to store copies of your files?

 

[oscer1]

hi best place to store would be an external hard drive. used to be that flash drives where so you could move files to one computer to another and was not ment to use a reliable backup. they where prone to fail more then cd/dvd. if you wan to use flash drives then I would have two of them with same stuff on them in case one fails you have another to make copies of. you should always have two copies anyways cause you never know when one going to fail.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
The worst problem with flash drives is they are easily dropped
Cheap ones are cheap for a reason

 

[atikovi]

Well, that's 4 devices I have backup copies stored on right now.

 

[atikovi]

Hi,
The worst problem with flash drives is they are easily dropped
Cheap ones are cheap for a reason

Never dropped one but they weigh nothing and wouldn't suffer any damage if you did. What reason? Bought a Sandisk 32GB for $11, what's wrong with it?

 

[alphaniner]

Backup is a complicated topic. In my experience the only universal rules are:
1) Test your backups. Among other things this means data integrity, not just "the files are there".
2) Have at least two backups, and store them in different [geographical] locations.

Beyond that it comes down to how much the information is worth to you, and how much you will spend protecting it.

WRT USB flash as backup medium, I've never known a well-treated flash drive to work fine one day and not work after weeks or months of non-use. In my experience flash dies during write. OTOH I have never used flash as long term storage. I'm sure there are studies, but I'm similarly certain it's not considered good practice. At the very least, don't use no-name flash media from China off eBay.

As for me, I use magnetic tape. Yes, that's still a thing, but it's not practical for the average Joe. Thing is I have access to my employer's full inventory of LTO tape drives. I also have a lot of experience with them, so I know how to test for problems. So I bought a used drive on eBay, knowing I could borrow one if it ever came to that.

Otherwise, I would probably just upload to the cloud, probably pre-encrypted. I don't know the standards for privacy, security, and disclosure on the average cloud provider, but I know of at least one that offers seamless encryption that even they can't break*. Or maybe I'd be using M-Disc.

* Tarsnap, "Online backups for the truly paranoid". It's primarily targeted at Unix/Linux users though.

 

[atikovi]

1) Test your backups. Among other things this means data integrity, not just "the files are there".

With 16,000 photos is there an effective way?

 

[alphaniner]

Oh, absolutely. Basically, you use a tool to compare files at the binary level. Google "windows file compare tools" for starters. BeyondCompare is my favorite tool for Windows, but it's quite complex and might not be a good starting point.

Another method is checksumming. Generally, you generate checksums of the original files and store them to a text file. Then you copy the files to the backup location and generate checksums again, comparing the new checksums to the originals. The advantage here is that you can store the file containing the checksums along with the backup (or elsewhere) to ensure the data is still "intact" years later. Again, there are tools for this. I do most of my backups from Linux these days, but I used to use md5summer for checksumming in Windows.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Dropping on a hard surface it doesn't matter.
Only a feather wouldn't mind

 

[OvenMaster]

I switched to USB flash drives after 10+ years of using DVD+RW for my backups. It was not an easy decision, juggling brand reputation, reliability, price, write speed, and size. I ended up with a Lexar 128GB USB 3.0 drive for $30 from Amazon.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The worst thing about flash drives in my experience is the construction of the case and connector.

They are just glued together. The casing can just come apart in your hands. Leaving aside the memory cells inside, they are just too flimsy to be taken very seriously---but I do use them casually.

Alphaniner--thanks for the link to that Windows checksumming tool. I'm going to have to get serious with that. Checksummer's latest version is 10 years old yesterday---do you know if it is fully compatible with 64-bit Win 7, 8, and 10?

I've got close to 100,000 data files of one type or another. I'd guess 90% of them have not been accessed in several years other than to copy. The text files haven't been read by my own eyes, most of the pictures haven't been looked at, and probably 3/4 of the mp3s haven't been played.

If 1/10 of 1% of them are in fact bad (unopenable, distorted, corrupted, unplayable), that's 100 bad files.

When I do a "backup", I'd just be backing up 100 bad files from point A to point B---without knowing those 100 files were totally useless.

Is there any way out of that dilemma? I'd guess not, if you don't have known good copies to compare to. And who can say they have personally actually opened and looked at or heard all of their tens of thousands of data files since they were first made over the last 20 plus years?

 

[Bernardus]

Never rely on one medium. Any HD will fail in time.
So keep it where you want it, but still burn one or two DVD's in case one crashes.
Flash drives are easily lost or they crash.
Your pictures may be much more valuable then a DVD or Flash drive.
I have lost often information on flash-drives who for unknown reasons wouldn't read any-more.
So I always back them up with Acronis on a seperate HD

 

[derekimo]

The worst thing about flash drives in my experience is the construction of the case and connector.

I just got one of these,



Nice metal case, small size too, these are both 8GB Data Travelers,



As for the topic of this thread, I've never lost anything on flash drives but I only use them for installers or transferring files, myself.

 

[Callender]

I've lost data on flash drives a few times in the past. Mostly due to being unable to safely eject due to something locking files on the flash drive like a buggy shell extension.

See:

How to Use Safely Remove Hardware to Eject a Device in Windows 7 and Windows 8

Any time you have a problem with "Safely Remove Hardware" option to eject a flash drive - the way to remove it without loosing / corrupting data is to switch off the computer before removing the drive.

 

[Callender]

Alphaniner--thanks for the link to that Windows checksumming tool. I'm going to have to get serious with that. Checksummer's latest version is 10 years old yesterday---do you know if it is fully compatible with 64-bit Win 7, 8, and 10?

You might be interested in DataHealthCheck:

DataHealthCheck Download

The first time a folder is scanned it adds all files MD5 and last modification date to a database. For subsequent runs it will rescan the folder and build a list of all the files and if a file previously existed it will compare the current "hash/modification date" with the old "hash/modification date" from the database to determine if the file is unchanged/changed/corrupt. If the file is changed it will add the new MD5 hash to the database and if new files are found their hashes will be added to the database.

So basically you have to scan your files at least once before subsequent scans at a later time will show problems.

For .jpg files I use a certain utility:

​

For corrupt video file detection take a look at the thread here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/393567-where-most-recently-used-lists-3.html#post3234325

Quote from Post #30 in the above thread:

But I tried out Media Preview anyway. And guess what? Besides seemingly working good, it allows Explorer to show thumbnails for .flv files. And I quickly discovered that it doesn't build a thumbnail for a corrupt file! It turns out I had a lot of corrupt .flv files!

And it was a breeze deleting them all, too. I just set Explorer to show medium icons and deleted all that didn't have a preview thumbnail. Boom, done! So it turns out to also be a good tool for finding corrupt files, too.

So if you try it - set Explorer to show video thumbnails and only check those videos where no thumbnail i displayed. It saves having to play them all to test for corruption.

 

[ThrashZone]

Any time you have a problem with "Safely Remove Hardware" option to eject a flash drive - the way to remove it without loosing / corrupting data is to switch off the computer before removing the drive.

In win-7 shut down is easy
In win-8 and 10 not so much seeing fast start does not shut down the system it only hibernates
I've only had the issue in 8 and 10 with errors reconnecting flash drives or even exterior hard drives becoming or being seen as Raw or getting the well known Must initialize disk before you can use it
Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

 

[MilesAhead]

The worst thing about flash drives in my experience is the construction of the case and connector.

That became my main concern. Also just spending money does not always guarantee reliability. My first flash drive was a Sandisk Titanium. All great revues but it turned out the "sliding guts" was not very solid. It died after about a dozen insertions. Fortunately I got a warning with intermittent contact and got my data off.

My preferred drive now as a price/performance/ruggedness standby is AData s102 USB 3.0. The body is corrugated aluminum and the connection seems solid with no moving parts. I bought some AData and Kingston "cheapies" just for copying files on to plug into another machine(a PC on a wired network for cheaper printing as example) but generally my warning would be avoid moving parts. Especially the "sliding guts" design. My first s102 I kept in my pocket and it had to absorb my weight on the body. The little cap on the back end falls off since I am too lazy to super glue it. But it still works fine. Of course I haven't tried dozens of brands because I try to avoid throwing money away. But I do like the s102. It comes in capacities 16GB all the way up to 256GB.

 

[alphaniner]

@MilesAhead: I have a couple AData s102 Pros, and I definitely agree WRT price and ruggedness. However, write speeds aren't impressive: I barely see any difference if plugged into USB 3 slot vs USB 2 slot. I have the 16GB model, and the advertised speeds of 100MB/s write are based on the 256GB model. What size do you have, and what kind of speeds do you see?

Mine also get quite warm just sitting idle while plugged in, but that could be normal for USB 3 drives for all I know.

Edit: I just found the "datasheet". The 16 and 32GB models are advertised as 25MB/s write.

 

[MrWhoopee]

I have 2 all-metal flash drives which live on my key-ring. The 32 gb Sandisk Cruzer Force is my everyday workhorse, containing my most used tools and utilities for working on client machines. Over the 3 or 4 years I've had it, it has survived multiple reformats, hundreds of improper disconnects and thousands of read/write cycles. It has been absolutely bullet proof. I just bought the 32 gb Samsung USB3, so it hasn't seen much use yet.

One cautionary tale. I had a client who was using a flash drive (Lexar, iirc) for backup and left it plugged in at all times. It died. For so many reasons, remove/disconnect whatever your backup media is when not in use.

 

[Callender]

Yes I've never had a problem with flash drives loaded with repair tools. Only problems with corrupted personal files.