Burnout

[Julian Hebbrecht]

Last week I had a flash drive of 250 MB plugged in my iBook and while I was working on something else, I suddenly got the message that I had removed a device illegally - (without dropping it first into the trash can that is). When I touched the flash drive it was really, really hot. I was still plugged in so I removed it and put it back but no dice - dead as a doornail ever after. I wasn't even using it when it happened. Has anybody ever had a flash drive burn out just like that?
Julian

[ronr]

Last week I had a flash drive of 250 MB plugged in my iBook and while I was working on something else, I suddenly got the message that I had removed a device illegally - (without dropping it first into the trash can that is). When I touched the flash drive it was really, really hot. I was still plugged in so I removed it and put it back but no dice - dead as a doornail ever after. I wasn't even using it when it happened. Has anybody ever had a flash drive burn out just like that?
Julian

Julian, I've had a couple at work go south, just not work, but never in the way you describe, and never felt them so HOT! Hope you didn't have anything irreplaceable on it. My view of these things at this point is just for moving, not permanently storing, data.

[Julian Hebbrecht]

I also use them just for moving things so nothing was lost. I didn't realize those flash drives (or memory sticks I used to call them) could just burn out like that. Now that there is talk about replacing hard drives with huge flash drives, they also could burn out just like that - in a FLASH.
Julian

[ronr]

I also use them just for moving things so nothing was lost. I didn't realize those flash drives (or memory sticks I used to call them) could just burn out like that. Now that there is talk about replacing hard drives with huge flash drives, they also could burn out just like that - in a FLASH.
Julian

That crossed my mind too. I'm guessing the USB connection has something to do with it, and I hope that the laptops using flash drives have more dependable connections/buses/whatever.

Will probably get a MacBook Air this summer, but think I'll start out with a traditional hard drive and maybe upgrade to a flash drive later.

[Julian Hebbrecht]

I don't understand what the kind of connection has to do with a burnout. Anyway, if a laptop flash drive burns out, no Disk Warrior or any other program will be able to drag data from the ashes, I'm afraid. Toast is toast.
Also, aren't flash drives much slower than regular hard drives?

[Col]

I don't understand what the kind of connection has to do with a burnout. Anyway, if a laptop flash drive burns out, no Disk Warrior or any other program will be able to drag data from the ashes, I'm afraid. Toast is toast.
Also, aren't flash drives much slower than regular hard drives?

I was skeptical about the speed and durability of solid state flash drives too, but Tony sent me an article that made me realize that the flash clip disks and the drives used in the MacBook Air are utterly different.

The clip drives are built to a price and usually use very cheap grades of NAND flash memory and speed and durability are not major considerations.

The solid-state drives use much faster flash memory and have sophisticated controllers which can detect, spare out damaged parts of the media and use a technique called wear leveling to make sure that the same parts of the drive are not used repeatedly.  Solid state drives are still very expensive and of relatively low capacity.  This will probably change somewhat in the next few years.

A friend at the uni has a MacBook Air with the 64GB solid state drive (total 380,000 yen) and I got to play with it on Sunday.  It boots up and launches applications quite a bit faster than my MacBook Pro, presumably because of the sold-state drive.

http://www.samsung.com/eu/Products/Semiconductor/products/ssd.asp

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ssd_write_limit

[Julian Hebbrecht]

Thanks for the info, Colin. Those drives sound really interesting but still too pricey for me. I don't have any use for a MacBook Air either at this point.

[kamingusu]

Hi there. 

I haven't had a USB drive burn up on me (yet), but I think Colin really hit on the answer to your problem -- some of these things are so cheap these days that there must be a trade-off on quality.  I'm sure this is not the case for the AirMacs.  Definitely caveat emptor on the inexpensive drives one can find at the big electronics stores. 

I did have my USB iPod Shuffle "die" on me when the plastic holding the metal connector snapped off and became detached from the rest of the device.  I tried to reconnect it but it wouldn't work. 

Phil

[Denny Crane]

Last week I had a flash drive of 250 MB plugged in my iBook and while I was working on something else, I suddenly got the message that I had removed a device illegally - (without dropping it first into the trash can that is). When I touched the flash drive it was really, really hot. I was still plugged in so I removed it and put it back but no dice - dead as a doornail ever after. I wasn't even using it when it happened. Has anybody ever had a flash drive burn out just like that?
Julian

I have not had any such problem with a flash drive (some are now calling it a flash "stick"), but in the past six months, both of my portable external 2.5-inch hard drives crashed. Each started chattering rather than loading.

Since I find it so much easier to transport the flash drive, I doubt whether I will replace the HDs. I do not think they are durable enough for constant transport anyway.

Norm