Another Flash Drive Q or two...

[ahhaa]

Prices are dropping again; just wondering if anybody knows what the expected 'half-life' of a flash drive might be? Say you loaded one with wedding photos, and dropped it in a drawer- how long would it be good for?

There seems to be a lot of people fiddling with 'OS on a stick'; I have a couple near DOS era programs that are getting harder & harder to install, would having them set up on a flash drive work out? How would I figure that out?

Got a friend with an old (I think 7.4) Mac that has USB but can't be upgraded anymore; would a flash drive be the easiest way to move the files?

[TBoneit]

The flash drive life is based on the number of writes. I suspect that it is a variable number of writes, where hopefully the brand name ones use a better quality flash memory chip.

Saying that I had to fix two of mine. I always dropped in my pocket and eventually, several months they started getting flakey, Then they stopped working.

I opened them up and the solder joints where the USB plug attached to the little circuit board were cracked. Resoldering the joints and voila, they now work again.

[oldandinthe way]

Likely to be longer than a DVD.

By the way, flash sizes are up there. Sandisk now has 8gb SD modules and 16mb CF modules. The 8mb is shipping with a list price of $160. Expect big price drops within 3 months.

You can not only save wedding photos but wedding movies.

[jagabo]

There seems to be a lot of people fiddling with 'OS on a stick'; I have a couple near DOS era programs that are getting harder & harder to install, would having them set up on a flash drive work out? How would I figure that out?

Try DosBox, Microsoft Virtual PC, or VirtualBox.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/
http://www.virtualbox.org/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

[Richard_G]

I don't know about the 'half life' of a flash drive, but I do know they are pretty robust. My partner put my jacket in the washing machine, not realising there was a 1Gb flash drive in the pocket. It was found, still in the washing machine after the washing machine had been used a further two times and still works perfectly. They are obviously immune to hot soapy water.......

[TBoneit]

I think down the road that drive will stop working as corrosion sets in. They aren't waterproof. If it was mine I'd have opened it, washed it in distilled water and air dried it to prevent corrosion.

[stiltman]

4gb flash drives were on sale at compusa for $34.99 no rebates
I bought 4 of them just to store picts on for long term storage