How long do these things last if you don't actually use them, ie unused in the packet 30 years from now...

I have thought about this but they still cost too much money. Dipshits on ebay are asking like a dollar each for 128mb micro SD cards and it's just cheaper to buy a 32gb micro SD for $3 than to try and hack together 300 old shit cards in some raid 0 arrangement

The problem is that this tech is not valuable. It's silicon and plastic. Once it becomes obsolete it is useless, and these low storage flash chips are especially bad. They cost nothing to manufacture, all of the value is marketing

USB hardware RAID

pssh I had a 4gb kingston stick at the time. yours must've been a freebie from a tradeshow or somehting

they go blank in 6 months without electricity

need to plug them often

No, I remember I got a 2gb one in 2006 and it was not expensive.

Those Kingston data travellers with 4gb were easily acquired in 2007

why would that matter to an unused drive?

I have a 16 GB SanDisk USB stick that has a write speed of ~200 kbps. Can anything be done about this shit?

it doesn't
you can use it, it will work
but remember to not forget stuff there for some monhts

Don't know about 30 years but they do last a really long time.

No, they were always 1GB or more. I remember having 2 1GB USBs in 2007 which were the cheapest option.

Bit rot. Flash memory is held by electricity. You need to power it on periodically to preserve data otherwise bits can flip.
>Solid-state media, such as EPROMs, flash memory and other solid-state drives, store data using electrical charges, which can slowly leak away due to imperfect insulation. The chip itself is not affected by this, so reprogramming it once per decade or so prevents decay.
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

So I ask again, "why would that matter to an unused drive?" Nothing you said has any relevance to an unopened, unused flash drive.

But all my ds and gba games still have their saves

Literally lost a 512MB usb stick from 2007 in my front yard, found it 2 years later, and it still worked. Still works today last time I checked. I think you’ll be fine.

You mean one with no data? It wouldn't. But why would you care about a drive with no data?

Better off storing your data online in an encrypted container at this point.

Maybe try reading the OP you dense fucktard

Not even that user but he just told you in this post that the data naturally degrades because perfect insulation of electrons is impossible.

See >ie unused in the packet 30 years from now, will it still work?

Nobody is talking about storing data, idiot

Are you retarded? "Unused" is also a term used for backup drives saved to once, then not used until needed. Kys.

Then say a blank drive, idiot. It being used makes no fucking difference.

Yeah that totally needed to be clarified because new flash drives STILL IN THE FUCKING PACKET have important user data stored on them, right? Fucking idiot

Unused means never used. Used once is still used. Do you consider a woman who has taken one cock to still be a virgin?

Yes, retard. You're talking about storage, why the fuck did you assume people would think you would NOT STORE shit in STORAGE then ask how long it lasts?
"Unused" is always used by people to specifically mean this Would you consider a flash drive a data storage device if you don't use it to store data? No, it would just be a paperweight and nothing else.

I guess I was off by 2-3 years. I remember that my first USB flash drive was 512 MB and it wasn't the cheapest model.

>"Unused" is always used by people to specifically mean this

Literally never heard that term used that way in my entire life and I've been lurking Jow Forumsdatahoarder for years. You are full of shit

>Would you consider a flash drive a data storage device if you don't use it to store data?

hurrr a car isn't a car if you don't drive it herppppppppperp

Fuck off tard

better check them often
also some gba games are battery powered

Most flash drives have an embedded controller (usually an 8051) with it’s own firmware. Maybe the ROM on the MCU suffers it’s own bit rot, not just the data on the flash chip.

>packet
what did she mean by this?

>never heard that term used that way in my entire life
Good for you
>a car isn't a car if you don't drive it herppppppppperp
Yes

>cute
don't say that, you're making me not want to eat them

WHAT
IS
THIS
SHIT
?

I use an old Kingston DataTraveler II (512MB) that I found in the trash and apparently it was released in 2005. I use it for passwords and documents. Maybe it's time to get a new one before it dies.

Attached: kingstondatatraveler2.jpg (550x243, 18K)

Retard

Old ones are easier for data recovery companies to get the data from if it does die. Also it might not have hardware backdoors like new ones probably do.

Same, always had atleast 4/8 at that time period.