If you mean USB sticks (thumb drives), I have a few 20 year old ones that I dust off from time to time when all I need is something small. Some have been in a drawer for years before I touched them again.

Theoretically, they need tl be re-written every few years at most. Read everything off, format and re-write. Checking for corruption would be adviasable when you do it.

One thing you could do is buy the.largest external drive you can get on black friday sales. Then just copy everything in it. No sort. Just dump it all in there. Think of it like clearing the table unto a large garbage bag. Then unplug it, put it in the closet, and do it again whenever you remember.

Even a mess like that is better than no backup at all.

I'm about to kick off a full offline backup of my GOG library over the holidays because I need that physical backup.