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Ask HN: Reliability reports for USB flash drives?

by wp381640 on 8/12/21, 5:21 AM with 3 comments

Hi HN - I'm sure you're all familiar with the Backblaze HDD reliability reports. I am wondering if there is a similar report or just shared experience with USB thumb drives?

I am working on a project where we need to buy a bunch of them for a specific application that requires the storage to be reliable (write once, read only in emergency and hopefully lasts)

I'd be interested in hearing if there are any formal reports out there (I haven't been able to find any) or just anecdotal experiences. What brands are best, which models, which can handle a drop or two while also offering a faster USB interface and write speeds? etc.

by ThrowawayR2 on 8/12/21, 2:56 PM
Consumer USB thumb drives, like consumer-grade micro SD cards, are designed for minimum cost per bit and not for reliable data retention over long periods of time. If you're not familiar with the terms SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC, you probably want to look them up and understand the implications.
Were I in your place, I'd start by looking for industrial SLC USB flash drive manufacturers (e.g. https://www.transcend-info.com/Embedded/Products/No-711 or https://www.delkin.com/products/industrial-usb-flash-drive/ but no endorsement of either is implied) and consult with their sales staff to find out what their data retention estimates are. If microSD cards are an option, industrial SLC versions are available as well, e.g. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/SanDisk/SDSDQED-008G-XI... , which specifically advertises a 10 year data retention if only written once. Needless to say, they won't be cheap.
by cpach on 8/12/21, 8:27 AM
Here’s one test: https://goughlui.com/2017/05/30/experiment-8gb-usb-flash-dri...
No idea if there is anything on the same scale as Backblaze’s reports.
Can you tell us anything more about the project/constraints? E.g. is it an option to write the data to Amazon S3 for reliable storage…?