SLC USB sticks

[admin]

As the numbers of failing USB sticks seems to increase, I would recommend to go with SLC types that can take about 10 times the write cycles the common MLC chips provide.

Transcend has a dedicated SLC model:
http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/Mo ... 4&LangNo=0

Buffalo as well:
Buffalo USB Stick R-Type 4GB

Unfortunately the manufacturers don't tell us how good their wear leveling algorithms are, but SLC chips with a decent wear leveling algorithm from one of the major brands should be a save buy.

[d_l]

I think that is the first manufacturer's website I've seen that has listed whether a thumbdrive uses SLC or MLC flash. Certainly online stores don't seem to emphasize the difference. As a rule of thumb of course, cheaper drives should tend to be MLC as those flash chips are cheaper to make in higher densities.

[Chill]

Rather than hardware problems I guess, most of the times, when a pendrive fails is a bad sector writting.

When you perform a Low Level Formating they can be used as original.

Do you agree?

Chill

[d_l]

I had a thumbdrive become corrupted in my NSLU2 Meteohub. After I replaced it, I erased the drive, reformatted it back to being a FAT32 drive, and then tried to use it as a flash drive on a stock NSLU2 FTP server. It lasted several weeks and became corrupted again. This time I couldn't resurrect it with another reformatting.

Edit: I just dismantled the failed flash drive and it contained two 2 GB Hynix HY27UU08AG5M chips. These are MLC flash chips.

[sevenless]

When you perform a Low Level Formating they can be used as original.

I had a KingMax brand 2GB stick (supplied with the NSLU2 from Ambient Weather) that failed a few months after I started using it.

The standard Windows XP 'format' command would only report about 800 MB of space on the drive and failed formatting (either quick or full format), reporting errors.

Then I tried the HDDGURU HDD Low Level Format Tool. The first try took a while but still reported only 800 MB of space after it was done. I tried it a second time, and that time it reported success and a 2GB stick with no errors found. I did a FAT32 format using the XP format command, and it's been working properly for me since then (approximately six months.)

I don't use it much (usually just to transport scans from one system to another), but it's had no problems holding (and giving back) up to 200 MB of data at one time... although I would never use it again for critical long-term storage.

[Chill]

I don't use it much (usually just to transport scans from one system to another), but it's had no problems holding (and giving back) up to 200 MB of data at one time... although I would never use it again for critical long-term storage.

I do! Actually I'm running meteohub in 'refurbished' pendrives, and I can't see any differences. i mean, may be today, tomorrow or in a six months time it will fail again. But this happens also with brand new ones.

That's why I posted this message...

Chill