Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Which will last longer, a USB drive or an SD card in a USB drive adapter? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I'm adding external storage to a Fire Stick and I'm wondering what will last longer, a USB stick or a micro sd card in a USB adapter?

The firestick will likely use the external storage for a few hours everyday so it will need to last as long as my grandmother does.

Second question, how long should I expect these to last assuming I buy quality?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Internally - there is basically zero difference between a usb thumbdrive and a microsd card.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That’s not necessarily true. It all depends on the flash and controller used in the USB drive. There ARE USB drives that are specifically designed for high endurance.

I have a USB stick that’s literally using an SSD controller internally and SSD quality flash. It’s much more expensive than a normal USB drive.

I would also argue that (micro)SD cards have very poor write endurance due to a lack of an internal controller.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I believe (micro)SD cards actually do have a controller. It's also possible to "Trim" SD cards via MMC commands, though this requires them to be accessible directly (i.e. /dev/mmcblk on Linux).

If you need USB-based storage that should be performant and reliable, there is a no-brainer solution: NVMe enclosure with a medium to high tier SSD. It's really hard to match the speed, reliability, and price of this solution.