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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
This section lists several strengths but no weaknesses (apart from saying that like all means of data storage it will eventually fail). Maybe something could be mentioned about the problems of non-compatability (I realise this is discussed elsewhere in the article) and memory corruption which, although I'm not an expert on the subject, I think can on occasion occur.
Edit:
One can write to the flash memory only so many times and then it is *poof* ... That is complicated by the fact that many programs pay no attention to how many times and ways they write to a drive. The end user thinks one copy of a jpeg is one write but that is not true. Several to many writes occur on the copy of just one file and that is multiplied, in a reduced manner, by the number of files copied. In fairness, all recordable media have limited use but flash is one of the most limited(except for the floppies I have purchased in the last five years which got about two writes before going bad).
Some years back Microsoft identified this problem as it related to MS OS and set forth some guidelines it believed should be implemented to make booting to USB a relatively simple task. To the best of my knowledge, little to nothing has been done to accomplish those objectives. ( RE: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx ) I just finished a week long effort to get boot on a 128MB Corsair Flash Voyager and get it so that my vendors' flash programs will run properly. It cannot be done with tools that normal computer users can access and use. I can boot but the result is "So what?" since the vendor's phlash.exe program will not run properly, etc... In the research effort I found that is a very common problem. I also found that there is no major manufacturer actively working on a *unified* solution. Hence, the removal of floppy drives from computer systems is not going to happen for a long time. ( a very depressing reality, IMO.)
The flash drive was first invented in 1998 at IBM as a floppy drive replacement for the ThinkPad line of products. Although there is an IBM disclosure, they did not patent it. IBM later contracted M-Systems to develop and manufacture it non-exclusively. M-Systems holds the patent to this device, as well as a few other related patents.
If IBM had publically disclosed this idea and contracted someone to make it non-exclusively how exactly can that other company have a patent on it? Plugwash 19:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
A company called Trek won the lawsuit regarding this patent. Hence, I've changed the "first maker" to Trek - as is proper - until the courts rule otherwise. http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=70859 Clockword 12:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The writing prior to my edits: "Dov Moran, President and CEO of M-Systems Flash Pioneers (Israel) invented the flash drive in 1998."
I'm neutral. (Trek also sued a fellow singapore company, successfully) Turns out there's a complicated patent war behind this. With editors caliming various companies or individuals creating the world's first thumb drive, I selected one company whose words are at least substantiated by a word of authority (like a court). If we find any legal ruling in a company's favour (even if it throws a doubt on the original court's judgement) we must revamp the first part to add that definitely. Clockword 21:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems like this article's point seems to be that "Flash storage devices are best compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices." In fact, this is a direct quote. This could probably be reworded. 8.8.201.199 02:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Edit:
"Flash storage devices provide some exceptional benefits compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices. They also provide some specific problems not inherent in other media."
Also Note, the use of the word "never" in that paragraph is negative. Jrowle 02:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
++ "Best" is definately not neutral here. Best would apply to CF's compactness or reliability. Best wouldn't apply to it's limited write cycles or data permanence where HD's or CD-R's outperform. I'd probably say:
"Flash storage devices have some advantages when compared to other common, portable, and swappable data storage devices including compactness and reliability due to their lack of mechanical hardware. However, they currently have disadvantages in the areas of cost, long-term data permanence, and limited write cycles when compared to other mediums such as hard drives and writable compact disks."
This would serve as a summary/intro to the section and then the section can go into more specific detail. 68.60.59.250 08:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
This really is just a brand name and synonym for a USB flash drive. This article already mentions the brand, and does a much better job of covering the generic realm of disk-on-key thingies. The page JumpDrive used to be a redirect, but somehow is now a distinct article notwithstanding the Alternative names for USB flash drive article. Comments? --Brownsteve 23:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I discovered that new sticks have lower read speed on yet unwritten sectors. This can make new owners think that they have been conned if they do a speed test and find lower than expected values. I think this phenomenon should be mentioned.
For example see before-and-after pictures here. It is a SanDisk Cruzer Titanium U3 1GB stick, with about 50 MB of preloaded software on the first picture and additional 250 MB of newly copied files on the second picture.
xerces8 -- 195.3.81.25 09:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Since there are several kinds of flash-based media as well as internal flash harddrives, redirecting Flash Drive here seems to me to be an error. All of the memory card types of devices can be considered flash drives and are treated as such by most operating systems. (with the exception of the IBM MicroDrive and derivatives). Flash memory-based Hard Drives were/are simply called flash drives. This is how I discovered the redirect.
A better, temporary solution is a disambiguation page for Flash Drive with a redirect from Flash_drive. I'll get to it soon if no one else does.
dygituljunky
Could lack of understanding by users be considered a weakness? I, for example, do not understand why some USB flash drives work on some computers and not on others. I am beginning to understand that one reason for not working is application or utility software on the flash drive, especially if it set to autorun. I have come across U3 software in particular as causing problems by autorunning (or by trying to and failing). Is there such a thing as a "standard" USB flash drive - or do ones from different manufacturers, or different models from the same manufacturer - differ in terms of how they behave, and what drivers are needed for them? Also - does anyone have an understanding of this that they could put in a way suitable for Wikipedia? FrankSier 14:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Not all flash drives are the same. If your going to purchase a flash drive for cheap money your going to run into problems with them. I own the Sandisk 1.0 gb flash drive. It has worked on 15 different computers with no problems. The past 2-3 years I have write/read on them countless times with no errors. Flash drives used to be an option to purchase, today with Windows Vista out, it's mandatory you have a TOP OF THE LINE flash drive to increase RAM. One thing I like to ask, Where can you buy a computer nowadays with a hard disk drive or a floppy drive? I haven't seen a computer with that accessibilty for atleast a couple years. If you prefer hard drives or floppy drives your best bet is to buy one at Best Buy. Ofcourse you will have to install them in your computer. I guess your not going to like what Samsung is up to. In mid 2007 Samsung will mass produce flash laptops. This will be expensive considering Flash Cost is high; $30 per GB. Ofcourse mostly Industrial businesses, military, Emergency Response Teams will more likely be the consumer. The cost would be around $3400 for a 32GB Flash Laptop. These laptops will be more for high performance not for storing your movies or your music collection, atleast not yet. All you flash drive haters out there. Times are chaging like it or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.138.247.2 ( talk) 23:31, 30 January 2007
uh, are you fucking retarded, pretty much every personal computer available today has a hard disk drive. the few exceptions are some superportable laptops have have solid state drives. BBnet3000 01:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Moved the point about pendrives being too small and easily lost to 'weaknesses', and added a section about power consumption and portability - Heliosphan — Heliosphan ( talk • contribs) 15:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
VFAT LFN support in Windows NT and later versions has a new "feature" that breaks backwards compatiblity with all previous OS, such as 98. Sometimes there is a long filename and a 8.3 shortname. Sometimes there is just an ordinary shortname. But sometimes there is a modified shortname, with two hidden bits that encode whether the filename is lowercase. The older versions of Windows do not understand these hidden bits. They treat the filename as all uppercase, so some filenames may change when reading the files on Windows 98. Often this filename change, from "example" to "EXAMPLE", does not matter, because Windows is mostly case-insensitive. But sometimes it causes software to malfunction, in strange ways. This happens with Portable ClamWin and Portable Nvu. The only ways around the problem are to transfer the files in an archive, to move them over a network, or to use Linux to read and re-write the files with the shortname mount option turned off. 69.87.193.141 22:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
These seem to be competing forms of memory storage. Am I correct? What if any significant advantages/disadvantages exist between them? Tmangray 04:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
And then we have both, I would argue that because Sandisk made these that the differences between native SD and native usb flash are negligible -
SD USB drives
I have one of these (an old 512mb one). They're great!
Heliosphan 15/10/07 —Preceding
comment was added at 15:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see this parameter mentioned as I believe it is important to a consumers experience, is often not specified by vendors, and varies widely for these devices. Comparing data transfer speeds to some baselines such as floppy and hardrive performance provide the reader with some framework for relative comparison. 68.250.132.165 16:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the above. Also it would be nice if someone adds explanation to how the speeds of the faster flash drives are calculated. For example what does 120X mean?--Lefter 13:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lefter ( talk • contribs)
I have seen many flash drives with games like the first super smash bros. This should be included with the common uses. How do people get this game there anyway? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.157.18.147 ( talk) 20:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC).
The link given points to the Kanguru web site, which does mention a 64GB maximum, but no details seem to be there, in particular the price and packaging - highest capacity I could find was 32GB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.25.251.197 ( talk) 21:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC).
How can this be when the military was using USB flash drives years and years before 2000.
The description of this technology includes the sentence "Flash memory is actually a combination of a number of older technologies, the low cost, low power consumption and small size being made possible by recent advances in microprocessor technology."
At some point the advances referenced in this description won't be so recent. I think that time has come. We should simply say that this technology is made possible by advances in microprocessor technology and leave out the recent part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cosmicdreams ( talk • contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I keep removing a spam link and unsourced information provided by an apparent WP:SPA (no other serious edits, focused on adding his service to this page and his company to Wikipedia.). Spryde 15:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that a section showing the different memory sizes available over the years as well as the costs would be useful in this section perhaps in a tabel ie Year Size Average cost 2006 128Mb US$24.95 Or something similar, to show how the technology has changed to accomodate larger and larger sizes over time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.221.208.151 ( talk) 12:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Thought maybe it would be good to include some info on how long data can sit on the flash drive for and if it would or would not be suitable for long-term data storage. I did a little research, looks like 10 years retention is the time most often quoted. -- phocks 13:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Did you know that the link for the Deep Eynde's second (I think it was second) album, Suicide Drive, now redirects here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.53.178 ( talk) 22:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is going on inside a flash memory disk that causes it to wear out after the 10,000-100,000 rewrites? A friend of mine who is very experienced with computers said that it melds or blows apart a connection on the chip, and that over time it just wears out and stops working. On the other hand I thought it used MOSFET/Capacitor cells (But then wouldnt the charge leak?) And if that IS the case, what is causing this wear? I mean if somthing like this wears out, why not say... a central processor? Dont those use MOSFETs and capacitors in its cicuitry?
Any help on this matter would be appreciated. -Weylin — 24.121.133.77 05:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Everything wears out over time, but usb flash drives made today wont wear out even with the continues use for several years. From corsair:
"-Will my Corsair USB Flash drive last more than 10 years?
Yes. All Corsair flash drives are built with memory components that can handle AT LEAST 10,000 write cycles; typically they will handle an order of magnitude more than this. So, this means that in order to exhaust the drive in ten years, one would have to write to EVERY BLOCK in the device about 2.7 times per day, every single day. We simply can’t conceive of such a usage scenario; this would mean that on a fairly typical 8 GByte drive, one would need to write over 21 GBytes of data to it every day for ten years! USB flash drives simply are not used in this way."
Others companies have similar numbers.
"Improperly wired USB ports can also destroy the circuitry of a flash drive, a danger in home-built desktop PCs."
This line while partly true has a flaw. The "danger" in home built PC's. When connecting USB ports in a home built PC, you connect a jumper that has some sort of idiot-proofing to ensure the cable is inserted correctly thus making it almost impossible to incorrectly wire a USB port. I'm making the change to the line now. — 65.13.47.14 ( talk) 23:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The front panel connectors are not standartized (or the standard not followed by). Older or noname Chinese cases could be purchased where each pin ends with its own connector. It's then up to the assembler to figure out the correct pinout. Also I've seen cases where the static drain wire (outer shield) was not grounded, but connected to the USB controller's ground instead. -- J7n ( talk) 09:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
17-March-2008: I have grouped the older topics above using level-1 headers as "Topics from 2005" (etc.) to emphasize age of topics. Older topics might still apply, but using the tactic of yearly headers to note the age helps avoid rehashing old news, without archiving any ongoing issues. Also, new topics are more likely to be added to the bottom, not top. In sorting years, I moved "Flash drives don't work on some computers" down to Jan. 2007. - Wikid77 ( talk) 05:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
This section lists several strengths but no weaknesses (apart from saying that like all means of data storage it will eventually fail). Maybe something could be mentioned about the problems of non-compatability (I realise this is discussed elsewhere in the article) and memory corruption which, although I'm not an expert on the subject, I think can on occasion occur.
Edit:
One can write to the flash memory only so many times and then it is *poof* ... That is complicated by the fact that many programs pay no attention to how many times and ways they write to a drive. The end user thinks one copy of a jpeg is one write but that is not true. Several to many writes occur on the copy of just one file and that is multiplied, in a reduced manner, by the number of files copied. In fairness, all recordable media have limited use but flash is one of the most limited(except for the floppies I have purchased in the last five years which got about two writes before going bad).
Some years back Microsoft identified this problem as it related to MS OS and set forth some guidelines it believed should be implemented to make booting to USB a relatively simple task. To the best of my knowledge, little to nothing has been done to accomplish those objectives. ( RE: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx ) I just finished a week long effort to get boot on a 128MB Corsair Flash Voyager and get it so that my vendors' flash programs will run properly. It cannot be done with tools that normal computer users can access and use. I can boot but the result is "So what?" since the vendor's phlash.exe program will not run properly, etc... In the research effort I found that is a very common problem. I also found that there is no major manufacturer actively working on a *unified* solution. Hence, the removal of floppy drives from computer systems is not going to happen for a long time. ( a very depressing reality, IMO.)
The flash drive was first invented in 1998 at IBM as a floppy drive replacement for the ThinkPad line of products. Although there is an IBM disclosure, they did not patent it. IBM later contracted M-Systems to develop and manufacture it non-exclusively. M-Systems holds the patent to this device, as well as a few other related patents.
If IBM had publically disclosed this idea and contracted someone to make it non-exclusively how exactly can that other company have a patent on it? Plugwash 19:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
A company called Trek won the lawsuit regarding this patent. Hence, I've changed the "first maker" to Trek - as is proper - until the courts rule otherwise. http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=70859 Clockword 12:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The writing prior to my edits: "Dov Moran, President and CEO of M-Systems Flash Pioneers (Israel) invented the flash drive in 1998."
I'm neutral. (Trek also sued a fellow singapore company, successfully) Turns out there's a complicated patent war behind this. With editors caliming various companies or individuals creating the world's first thumb drive, I selected one company whose words are at least substantiated by a word of authority (like a court). If we find any legal ruling in a company's favour (even if it throws a doubt on the original court's judgement) we must revamp the first part to add that definitely. Clockword 21:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems like this article's point seems to be that "Flash storage devices are best compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices." In fact, this is a direct quote. This could probably be reworded. 8.8.201.199 02:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Edit:
"Flash storage devices provide some exceptional benefits compared to other common, portable, swappable data storage devices. They also provide some specific problems not inherent in other media."
Also Note, the use of the word "never" in that paragraph is negative. Jrowle 02:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
++ "Best" is definately not neutral here. Best would apply to CF's compactness or reliability. Best wouldn't apply to it's limited write cycles or data permanence where HD's or CD-R's outperform. I'd probably say:
"Flash storage devices have some advantages when compared to other common, portable, and swappable data storage devices including compactness and reliability due to their lack of mechanical hardware. However, they currently have disadvantages in the areas of cost, long-term data permanence, and limited write cycles when compared to other mediums such as hard drives and writable compact disks."
This would serve as a summary/intro to the section and then the section can go into more specific detail. 68.60.59.250 08:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
This really is just a brand name and synonym for a USB flash drive. This article already mentions the brand, and does a much better job of covering the generic realm of disk-on-key thingies. The page JumpDrive used to be a redirect, but somehow is now a distinct article notwithstanding the Alternative names for USB flash drive article. Comments? --Brownsteve 23:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I discovered that new sticks have lower read speed on yet unwritten sectors. This can make new owners think that they have been conned if they do a speed test and find lower than expected values. I think this phenomenon should be mentioned.
For example see before-and-after pictures here. It is a SanDisk Cruzer Titanium U3 1GB stick, with about 50 MB of preloaded software on the first picture and additional 250 MB of newly copied files on the second picture.
xerces8 -- 195.3.81.25 09:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Since there are several kinds of flash-based media as well as internal flash harddrives, redirecting Flash Drive here seems to me to be an error. All of the memory card types of devices can be considered flash drives and are treated as such by most operating systems. (with the exception of the IBM MicroDrive and derivatives). Flash memory-based Hard Drives were/are simply called flash drives. This is how I discovered the redirect.
A better, temporary solution is a disambiguation page for Flash Drive with a redirect from Flash_drive. I'll get to it soon if no one else does.
dygituljunky
Could lack of understanding by users be considered a weakness? I, for example, do not understand why some USB flash drives work on some computers and not on others. I am beginning to understand that one reason for not working is application or utility software on the flash drive, especially if it set to autorun. I have come across U3 software in particular as causing problems by autorunning (or by trying to and failing). Is there such a thing as a "standard" USB flash drive - or do ones from different manufacturers, or different models from the same manufacturer - differ in terms of how they behave, and what drivers are needed for them? Also - does anyone have an understanding of this that they could put in a way suitable for Wikipedia? FrankSier 14:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Not all flash drives are the same. If your going to purchase a flash drive for cheap money your going to run into problems with them. I own the Sandisk 1.0 gb flash drive. It has worked on 15 different computers with no problems. The past 2-3 years I have write/read on them countless times with no errors. Flash drives used to be an option to purchase, today with Windows Vista out, it's mandatory you have a TOP OF THE LINE flash drive to increase RAM. One thing I like to ask, Where can you buy a computer nowadays with a hard disk drive or a floppy drive? I haven't seen a computer with that accessibilty for atleast a couple years. If you prefer hard drives or floppy drives your best bet is to buy one at Best Buy. Ofcourse you will have to install them in your computer. I guess your not going to like what Samsung is up to. In mid 2007 Samsung will mass produce flash laptops. This will be expensive considering Flash Cost is high; $30 per GB. Ofcourse mostly Industrial businesses, military, Emergency Response Teams will more likely be the consumer. The cost would be around $3400 for a 32GB Flash Laptop. These laptops will be more for high performance not for storing your movies or your music collection, atleast not yet. All you flash drive haters out there. Times are chaging like it or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.138.247.2 ( talk) 23:31, 30 January 2007
uh, are you fucking retarded, pretty much every personal computer available today has a hard disk drive. the few exceptions are some superportable laptops have have solid state drives. BBnet3000 01:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Moved the point about pendrives being too small and easily lost to 'weaknesses', and added a section about power consumption and portability - Heliosphan — Heliosphan ( talk • contribs) 15:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
VFAT LFN support in Windows NT and later versions has a new "feature" that breaks backwards compatiblity with all previous OS, such as 98. Sometimes there is a long filename and a 8.3 shortname. Sometimes there is just an ordinary shortname. But sometimes there is a modified shortname, with two hidden bits that encode whether the filename is lowercase. The older versions of Windows do not understand these hidden bits. They treat the filename as all uppercase, so some filenames may change when reading the files on Windows 98. Often this filename change, from "example" to "EXAMPLE", does not matter, because Windows is mostly case-insensitive. But sometimes it causes software to malfunction, in strange ways. This happens with Portable ClamWin and Portable Nvu. The only ways around the problem are to transfer the files in an archive, to move them over a network, or to use Linux to read and re-write the files with the shortname mount option turned off. 69.87.193.141 22:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
These seem to be competing forms of memory storage. Am I correct? What if any significant advantages/disadvantages exist between them? Tmangray 04:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
And then we have both, I would argue that because Sandisk made these that the differences between native SD and native usb flash are negligible -
SD USB drives
I have one of these (an old 512mb one). They're great!
Heliosphan 15/10/07 —Preceding
comment was added at 15:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see this parameter mentioned as I believe it is important to a consumers experience, is often not specified by vendors, and varies widely for these devices. Comparing data transfer speeds to some baselines such as floppy and hardrive performance provide the reader with some framework for relative comparison. 68.250.132.165 16:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the above. Also it would be nice if someone adds explanation to how the speeds of the faster flash drives are calculated. For example what does 120X mean?--Lefter 13:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lefter ( talk • contribs)
I have seen many flash drives with games like the first super smash bros. This should be included with the common uses. How do people get this game there anyway? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.157.18.147 ( talk) 20:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC).
The link given points to the Kanguru web site, which does mention a 64GB maximum, but no details seem to be there, in particular the price and packaging - highest capacity I could find was 32GB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.25.251.197 ( talk) 21:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC).
How can this be when the military was using USB flash drives years and years before 2000.
The description of this technology includes the sentence "Flash memory is actually a combination of a number of older technologies, the low cost, low power consumption and small size being made possible by recent advances in microprocessor technology."
At some point the advances referenced in this description won't be so recent. I think that time has come. We should simply say that this technology is made possible by advances in microprocessor technology and leave out the recent part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cosmicdreams ( talk • contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I keep removing a spam link and unsourced information provided by an apparent WP:SPA (no other serious edits, focused on adding his service to this page and his company to Wikipedia.). Spryde 15:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that a section showing the different memory sizes available over the years as well as the costs would be useful in this section perhaps in a tabel ie Year Size Average cost 2006 128Mb US$24.95 Or something similar, to show how the technology has changed to accomodate larger and larger sizes over time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.221.208.151 ( talk) 12:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Thought maybe it would be good to include some info on how long data can sit on the flash drive for and if it would or would not be suitable for long-term data storage. I did a little research, looks like 10 years retention is the time most often quoted. -- phocks 13:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Did you know that the link for the Deep Eynde's second (I think it was second) album, Suicide Drive, now redirects here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.53.178 ( talk) 22:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is going on inside a flash memory disk that causes it to wear out after the 10,000-100,000 rewrites? A friend of mine who is very experienced with computers said that it melds or blows apart a connection on the chip, and that over time it just wears out and stops working. On the other hand I thought it used MOSFET/Capacitor cells (But then wouldnt the charge leak?) And if that IS the case, what is causing this wear? I mean if somthing like this wears out, why not say... a central processor? Dont those use MOSFETs and capacitors in its cicuitry?
Any help on this matter would be appreciated. -Weylin — 24.121.133.77 05:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Everything wears out over time, but usb flash drives made today wont wear out even with the continues use for several years. From corsair:
"-Will my Corsair USB Flash drive last more than 10 years?
Yes. All Corsair flash drives are built with memory components that can handle AT LEAST 10,000 write cycles; typically they will handle an order of magnitude more than this. So, this means that in order to exhaust the drive in ten years, one would have to write to EVERY BLOCK in the device about 2.7 times per day, every single day. We simply can’t conceive of such a usage scenario; this would mean that on a fairly typical 8 GByte drive, one would need to write over 21 GBytes of data to it every day for ten years! USB flash drives simply are not used in this way."
Others companies have similar numbers.
"Improperly wired USB ports can also destroy the circuitry of a flash drive, a danger in home-built desktop PCs."
This line while partly true has a flaw. The "danger" in home built PC's. When connecting USB ports in a home built PC, you connect a jumper that has some sort of idiot-proofing to ensure the cable is inserted correctly thus making it almost impossible to incorrectly wire a USB port. I'm making the change to the line now. — 65.13.47.14 ( talk) 23:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The front panel connectors are not standartized (or the standard not followed by). Older or noname Chinese cases could be purchased where each pin ends with its own connector. It's then up to the assembler to figure out the correct pinout. Also I've seen cases where the static drain wire (outer shield) was not grounded, but connected to the USB controller's ground instead. -- J7n ( talk) 09:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
17-March-2008: I have grouped the older topics above using level-1 headers as "Topics from 2005" (etc.) to emphasize age of topics. Older topics might still apply, but using the tactic of yearly headers to note the age helps avoid rehashing old news, without archiving any ongoing issues. Also, new topics are more likely to be added to the bottom, not top. In sorting years, I moved "Flash drives don't work on some computers" down to Jan. 2007. - Wikid77 ( talk) 05:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)