My USB stick is starting to go bad on me.

I am looking for recomendations for a replacement.

Has anyone out there done the research and found a high reliability usb stick?

thanks

 

In my experience, if you want the best shot at a long term reliable stick, Go to a national retailer (best buy, fry's, whatever) and buy a quality brand name (PNY, SanDisk, Kingston...). Avoid Names like Adata, Dynex, basically any 'discount' brand. It will cost a bit more; but what's an extra $10 compared to the time it will take troubleshooting a flaky usb drive.

 

That being said, even the brand name drives can have issues. My first drive was a PNY, and it would intermittently not report it's guid so my unraid would default to basic. That wasn't fun to troubleshoot.

 

 

*edit* I forgot to add earlier that the reason I would stick with a national retailer is because they are less likely to end up with a batch of counterfeit product.

I use Verbatim Clip-it sticks and they have worked well for me.  I have ESXi running on one and 2 unRAID installs on others.

Seconding the Verbatim Clip It, they are great flash drives and reasonably price.  Another choice is an SD card reader with a valid GUID, such as the Kingston MobileLiteG2 (great choice for a test server in which you may be changing configurations often).

Alright I gave up on finding vendor information on the reliability.

Some older Corsair flask sticks had SLC in them but it looks like they have moved on to newer chips.

So I went for the longest warranty I could find easily.

The best I found at my local Fry's was 10 year warranty on a 16 GB Corsair Flash Voyager Mini.

Part number CMFUSBMINI-16GB

 

I wish someone would test to fail USB sticks and publish the results

https://www.google.com/search?q=reviews+%22flash+drive%22&hl=en&num=100&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images

https://www.google.com/search?q=reviews+%22flash+drive%22&hl=en&num=100&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images

 

But Google returns location based results, and none of what I read mentioned long term reliability. 

 

Users on this forum are likely to have better informed views in many cases.  Me, I use Lexar Firefly (I have three for unRAID use). 

I can think of another forum where they might know about long term reliability and it's this. Very old forum and lots of photographers and they store a lot of stuff.

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1004&/pc-talk-forum/

.A long guarantee period is often a good sign when it comes to durability.  Pretty sure kingston do five years on theirs,  maybe someone offers better? 

 

Of course if you make sure nothing writes to your usb, that will help too.

i own couple of sandisk flash drive. few of em are cruzer fit. one of em died on me less than a month with extremely infrequent usage. the drives are stored safely(room temp, no shock etc).

 

unfortunately, i use of the cruzer fit for my unraid pro. if my drive died, can i send to tom for verification(can he check the guid of died drive?)

 

what manufacturer provide the longest warranty?

Another choice is an SD card reader with a valid GUID, such as the Kingston MobileLiteG2 (great choice for a test server in which you may be changing configurations often).

 

Wooo wait, so your saying, with that you can change the SD card as many times as you like and still be able to use the license key?? I really wish I knew about this before I purchased unraid  (tho my usb stick has been going fine for a few yrs now). That's what should be the suggested device to purchase a license for. This looks perfect. It allows you to replace the SD card if it dies and not have to contact Tom. It also allows you to have a backup of your config and also allows you to play with configurations. Looks PERFECT...

Another choice is an SD card reader with a valid GUID, such as the Kingston MobileLiteG2 (great choice for a test server in which you may be changing configurations often).

 

Wooo wait, so your saying, with that you can change the SD card as many times as you like and still be able to use the license key?? I really wish I knew about this before I purchased unraid  (tho my usb stick has been going fine for a few yrs now). That's what should be the suggested device to purchase a license for. This looks perfect. It allows you to replace the SD card if it dies and not have to contact Tom. It also allows you to have a backup of your config and also allows you to play with configurations. Looks PERFECT...

 

Yes it is.