n4jee Loc: New Bern, NC

I use an iPod to play music in the car and the battery finally needed replacing. I mailed it off to the iPod doctor and began experimenting with a thumb drive with music on it plugged directly into the same port that I plugged the iPod into. Lo and behold, it worked just the same. My radio only used the iPod for storage.

I went to the internet looking for a flash drive the same size as my iPod. I was amazed to find a 2TB thumb drive on eBay for under $9 with free shipping. Now, the size of the external drive that I use for storing my photo backups is 2 TB and cost me about $80. I bought one and will use it to back up the backup.

I remember when I had my first DOS computer built and had to pay an additional $25 for a 40 MB HD because they were out of the 20 MB that I wanted. I couldn't imagine what I'd do with all that storage after using 360K floppy disks for so long. Boy, has storage come down in price!

Has anybody experienced problems with using high capacity flash drives for storing their photos?

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

When not if they fail you lose more data

pesfls Loc: Oregon, USA

No, no problems. Knock on wood! FYI, I store my keepers on a flash drive and Adobe cloud. I’m no computer wizard but feel safe with this habit of saving in two unrelated spots.

suterjo Loc: Delaplane, VA

Two or even three places to store the really good ones is never a bad thing. I keep my archival imagery in a fireproof gun safe. And the imagery is more valuable to me than the guns.

SonyA580 Loc: FL in the winter & MN in the summer

The thumb drives are so cheap, why not use 2 and double back-up.

therwol Loc: USA

Fireproof safes are insulated but also release moisture inside during a fire, which helps prevent documents from burning if the temperature inside gets too hot. The temperature may still get too hot for electronic devices to survive intact, even though documents and guns may survive. I keep my external hard drives in a Liberty "fireproof" safe, but I also keep a duplicate of everything at my son's house. I have a total of three backups, two in the safe and one at my son's house. I have to keep updating all of them, of course.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I only use thumb drives for temporary storage. They are not reliable in the long term. My backup strategy is local drive on computer, external drive x2, cloud. Spending a couple of hundred dollars for robust storage is pennies compared to the alternative when backups fail. Any other strategy is a ticking time bomb. I've been in IT since 1983, and I have seen all sorts of backup strategies fail.

Bison Bud

Is there a technical reason why thumb drives "are not reliable in long term storage" and if so, why would they be worse than an SSD or platter type hard drive?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

There is a long list of reasons that "thumb drives" are not the best choice for archival storage. Probably the most important one is simply that they are not physically constructed for long-term reliability. Before retiring, I saw multiple cases at work in which the USB connector physically broke away from the body of the device, rendering it immediately and permanently unserviceable. Devices built to sell for cheap prices are the ones with the lowest mechanical integrity.

A second risk is related simply to the way that these devices get handled...carried in pockets getting jostled by keys and no telling what else. Connector caps get lost, allowing foreign material to get inside the connector. They can also be subject to damage from static electricity, especially when carried in clothing.

Third, because of their size and design, they are just subject to getting lost. It's simply too easy to treat them too casually compared to their contents.

And...they tend to be the slowest type of memory to read and write.

My suggestion is to feel free to use these when necessary or convenient for moving files around. Avoid them for intermediate or long-term storage of any important files.

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

Been using solid state storage devices for about 16 years now. Never had one fail yet. Have all my documents and pictures backed up on 2 of them, and on my spare computer. I carried an 80 gig WD Passport around with me when working multiple platforms offshore for records and files I needed for about my last 5 years in the gulf. Now days, I still use it though it's 16 yrs old.

steve33 Loc: Yarmouth MA

USB flash drive should be ok, if you store it in a safe place to avoid damage. It can be a good pption when traveling too, if you have a laptop to transfer data.
Here's a link:
https://www.securedatarecovery.com/blog/is-a-usb-flash-drive-more-reliable-than-a-hard-drive-2

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Checked on ebay, and it looks like what they're selling as 2TB is actually only 32GB of storage. I don't understand how they can label these drives as 2TB.

(Download)

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Exactly, plus a backup implies a copy of the original, so if the backup gets lost/destroyed, nothing is really lost.

Unless you are talking archival storage.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Buyer beware! EBay has become a sellers paradise for the creative wordsmith!

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

I used to work for a computer systems company in the early 80’s. CDC disk drives were the size of washing machines and held a multi platter disk that held a whopping 300mb of storage. Cost $20,000! And newspapers would buy 2, 1 for backup.

I just condensed a ton of CD disks onto my 5TB drive. Took up less than 1 TB.