USB Flash Memory Question

Macel

Distinguished
May 25, 2002
13
0
18,510
Just bought a 1 gig USB pen drive off newegg...

I want to make sure that I don't do anything to significantly decrease the life of the pen drive. I hear that flash memory has a limit to the number of writes before it gets 'worn out'.

My question is:
Does this apply to reads as well? Should I be using the flash drive to play my music directly off of, or should I copy it to the hard drive first? (note - this is a fast flash drive that doesnt have problems playing music)
 

folken

Distinguished
Sep 15, 2002
2,759
0
20,780
I have yet to see a flash device die from to many read/writes. I wouldn't worry about it.
I've used my pen drive many times a day including running things from it for well over a year now and it shows no signs of giving up. My friend has had his little 64mb flash drive since 64mb drives came out :)

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>
 

Rob423

Distinguished
Feb 5, 2002
2,809
0
20,810
you should be fine, probely just a gimmick they have so you can talk yourself into buying newer stuff in a year. lol your probley good to good for years to come.

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
80gb Maxtor
200gb WD 8mb cache..
Lian-Li PC-60
LiteOn 52X/LiteOn 811s DVD-RW
AMD XP2800+
LeadTek GF4Ti4200 128mb
Hitachi CML174
1GB Corsair XMS PC3200