USB Memory Sticks Are Getting WORSE

[Vetteman]

According to a German report in 2024, USB Flash drives are getting worse and less reliable.

 

 

German data recovery specialist has confirmed what many Reg readers will have suspected: USB memory sticks are getting less reliable. The cause, as you might have guessed, is inferior memory chips, while the move to storing multiple bits per flash cell also plays a part.

CBL Data Recovery posted that the quality of newer memory components in microSD and USB sticks is declining, and it reported that USB sticks where the NAND manufacturer's logo had been removed from the chip are increasingly turning up in its data recovery laboratory.

It suspects that flash chips from manufacturers such as SK hynix, Sandisk or Samsung that fail quality control checks are being resold into the market, but marked as components with lower memory capacities.

"When we opened defective USB sticks last year, we found an alarming number of inferior memory chips with reduced capacity and the manufacturer's logo removed from the chip," wrote CBL Managing Director Conrad Heinicke (translated from German).

 

More at link https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/07/failed_usb_sticks/#:~:text=According to our sister site,and QLC supports about 1%2C200.

 

 

So why is Limewire DEMANDING we install Unraid to flash drives and not allowing us to install to SSD, NVMe or mechanical hard drives.

The customer should have the option and RIGHT to decide to which media they install their OS to.

 

I have mentioned this a few times here, but I am an avid photographer who sells stock photos and prints on line. Any serious or pro photographer will not keep copies of their precious photos on a flash drives as they are known by photographers and digital artists to be very unreliable and prone to failure.

 

So why is Limewire not putting the customer FIRST and giving us this option. The constant lame excuse because Unraid loads into memory and runs there is not a valid reason. The OS could still load into memory from a SSD or mechanical hard drive and thereby averting the flash drive unreliability.

 

Giving up a SATA port? So what, most customers will realize this and may add additional SATA port cards or HBA or simply make due with what SATA prots are available. Again the decision should be the customers, not Limewires.

 

Cheers

 

[JonathanM]

I do NOT speak for Limetech (not Limewire, that's an old file sharing thing) but I have a question. Would you be OK with an online license verification option? The biggest reason I believe we are still locked in to flash GUID for licenses, is the cheap nature of a unique token that can be verified completely offline. Other options in that space add a minimum of $30 for the hardware, and it would have to be sourced and maintained by Limetech, which adds a bunch of cost and complexity to the licensing scheme, not to mention the extreme PITA when a dongle fails, is lost, or broken.

 

Currently if the flash drive fails it's a relatively low cost user replaceable item, and the key replacement is handled by the automated system. Limetech even maintains a cloud backup option to make it even easier.

 

I don't see a whole lot of good options for people who want a totally firewalled system that runs without contacting Limetech on startup.

 

What did you have in mind?

 

@SpencerJ, care to chime in here?

[Vetteman]

I use registered versions of Windows 10 and 11.  Use registered Adobe apps - Lightroom and Photoshop, Corel Painter, Rebelle 5 (painting app), ArtRage (painting app), 3D Coat 2024 (3D sculpting app), Blender (opensource), MOI3D (3D cad), Daz Studio (freeware) and a few other apps which escape this senior citizen's memory. All my apps are registered except for the opensource and freeware.

 

Limetech (sorry for the slipup on Limewire) could they not use the same model as Microsoft or Adobe? 

 

I very much dislike flash drives. Had too many over the years just crap out, losing a photo, file, 3d model or document.

 

Those who want to install to a hard drive should be able to and those who wish to go the USB route should also.

 

Limetech needs to treat their loyal customers as valuable and not as potential pirates or criminals. If it works for Adobe, Corel or Microsoft, it should work for Limetech.

 

 

 

Cheers

Edited August 3 by Vetteman
grammar

[Vetteman]

I also use USB flash drives to record tv shows and movies on my tv. The recording device (about the size of two cigarette packs stacked one onto the other) also uses flash drives which I then place into the USB port on my WD TV Live to play back. In the last year I have had two video recording flash drives fail. In the last 10 months I've had 3 Unraid flash drives fail as recent as yesterday.

 

SSDs and mechanical drives are getting more reliable, the same can not be said about these USB TRASH drives. I only use recognizable brand names like Sandisk, Kingston, Crucial, etc. The drives that failed on my video recorder and Unraid were ALL new drives which lost their virginity the first time they were placed into these devices. They were NOT older devices that were laying around and had prior usage.

 

I've had SD, XD and Compact Flash cards fail in my Nikon and Olympus DSLR cameras. # of my 5 Nikons have double SD slots which does a sort of mirroring, saving the same photo to both SDs. My Olympus do the same having a Compact Flash slot and an XD slot.

 

Perhaps it is possible Unraid could have TWO mountable USB Flash drives to circumvent the issue that arises when a flash drive punks out.

 

With one of my Gigabyte motherboards to boot from a USB device it MUST be placed into the USB port on the back of the computer and the one nearest to the PS2 mouse/keyboard port, which is USB2. It will not boot from any other USB2 or USB3 port.  I've tried for quite some time and according to the Gigabyte forum, the USB device must be in the port nearest the PS2 port. So when/if this port fails, I will have to purchase a motherboard. If a SATA port fails, I simply move the bootable drive to another SATA port and may have to  change some bios boot settings. 

 

Many years ago Netware 3.x had to boot from DOS floppies to start the Netware boot process. But with future versions of Netware it allowed to boot from a small DOS hard drive partition.

 

Does TrueNas only boot from a flash drive? I ask as I honestly do not know?

 

Does a virtualized Unraid boot from a flash drive? Again I do not know.

 

I think LimeTech must come of age and stop the silliness of Henry Fords mindset that all Model T cars have to be black. 

 

Thanks kindly...

PS: I think Unraid is a marvelous piece of software. However I do have a couple of concerns about it. One being flash drives.

[SpencerJ]

Hello @Vetteman,

 

We are aware of this topic and are looking into solutions. We don't have anything to announce at this time, but it is being actively investigated.

 

 

[Hoopster]

On 8/4/2024 at 8:34 AM, Vetteman said:

However I do have a couple of concerns about it. One being flash drives.

I have definitely noticed a lot of new threads recently about USB flash drive issues.  I would have to agree with your perception that they fail more often than they used to.  Fortunately, all three of my Unraid servers have "older" USB flash drives that have not had any issues.  One is almost 12 years old and still going strong (I hope). Two are USB2 and one is USB3 but they work equally well in my servers.

 

If flash drive failures continue to be an issue it will not be helpful to Limetech/Unraid so I am pleased to see they are looking into the situation.

[Vetteman]

3 hours ago, SpencerJ said:

Hello @Vetteman,

 

We are aware of this topic and are looking into solutions. We don't have anything to announce at this time, but it is being actively investigated.

 

 

 

I find comfort in your report and I am being very truthful. Thanks very much for acknowledging and looking into this issue.

[Vetteman]

11 hours ago, Hoopster said:

I have definitely noticed a lot of new threads recently about USB flash drive issues.  I would have to agree with your perception that they fail more often than they used to.  Fortunately, all three of my Unraid servers have "older" USB flash drives that have not had any issues.  One is almost 12 years old and still going strong (I hope). Two are USB2 and one is USB3 but they work equally well in my servers.

 

If flash drive failures continue to be an issue it will not be helpful to Limetech/Unraid so I am pleased to see they are looking into the situation.

My primary Unraid server which is 3 years old is still using the original Scandisk USB2 thumb drive. It is plugged into an USB3 port. The issue seems to be with newer flash drives. Newer flash drives are the ones which have been failing on my secondary Unraid server plugged into a USB2 port and video recording device - USB3 port.

[Frank1940]

13 minutes ago, Vetteman said:

The issue seems to be with newer flash drives. Newer flash drives are the ones which have been failing on my secondary Unraid server plugged into a USB2 port and video recording device - USB3 port.

 

Have a look at your boot/flash drive at the 'Last Modified' date and times and see if what (if anything) is writing to that drive.  Investigate anything that seems out of place.  (I have included the video recording device in the quote as a possible suspect.  These thing are notorious for having security issues and sloppily-written software...)

 

(I am trying to address your problem of frequency USB drive failures.  LimeTech seems to be investigating possible solutions to replace the current USB license enforcing arrangement.  One problem is that many of the solutions employee hardware made in China and those manufacturers are mostly concerned with cost.) 

[Vetteman]

My WD TV Live device does write to a root folder .wd_tv each time I update video content on the thumb drive.