Guide Take care of ur pen drive

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well guys now a days pen drives are really cheap and have become most sought after ways of data transfer. below are some points to just have a look at

1. life

only thing(apart from normal wear and tear) the affects life of a usb drive is write cycles.

u can read data from a drive any no of times u want but writing a data to it will decrease its life by a bit.
writing includes deleting/defragmenting etc.
thus unless sufficient space is not left in ur drive for ur new file , DONOT delete old data from it , just insert more new data.

2 defragment

unlike normal hard disks with moving spindles , pen drives do not have slow and fast zones.
data kept anywhere will be read at same speed in a pen drive.
thus NEVER defrag ur pen drive as it introduces one more write cycle and reduce life of ur pen drive (by just a little bit).

also usb drives don't have any head that needs to move its position (thus wasting time to read a fragmented file on an a hard drive drive)

so no need whatsoever to defrag ur usb(or any other solid state drives)
3. safely remove ur external drive

well speed of hd is much faster than pen drive
thus when u transfer data to ur pen drive , to speed things up , some of the data may be "cached" by ur os.

thus when the dialogue box showing file transfer to pen drive has vanished , the data may not have been completely written to pen drive.
that is why whenever u copy something to ur pen drive u must always make sure that u "safely remove the hardware" just to be sure that all data has been transferred.

when u are reading from ur pen drive , no such thing occurs , thus the moment the transfer dialog is complete , u can simply take out ur pen drive without any fear of data corruption.

thus always "safely remove hardware" when u copy something to ur pen drive , else it is not necessary
4. file systems

default is fat 32
some guys prefer ntfs , linux geeks may try out ext3.

well these journaled file systems carry no real benefit in terms of data security.
but they have a lot of overhead in terms of journaling , keeping extra record bout files etc.

this again introduces useless write cycles which again is bad for life for ur pen drive.

preferable file systems ----- fat32 / ext2 .

5. viruses

these can be avoided by
a-> using linux:rofl:
b-> using hips(comodo defence+)

else on windows , always disable autorun of removable drives from "tweakui"
also keep anti virus updated .

well if u must , transfer data from a pc u know is already "infected"(college pc/net cafe's) then

1. shut down "infected" pc
2. boot into ubuntu installer's live disk
3. now attach ur pen drive and transfer data happily!!

or else if u can , make urself a bootable ubuntu pen drive.
simply boot into it and do what u want fearlessly
 
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SidhuPunjab said:
LOL is it guide ??? or precautions, whatever nice effort, better than nothing. :)
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wat is so LOL in the post??????????

u want a step by step guide of a really "complicated and tough job" of how to insert pen drive into a usb slot?
anyways thanx for feedback
 
Nice work.it wil be better if u give some links regarding the write cycles decreasing the life of the pen drive.

btw can you prevent viruses from entering the pen drive?my college PC's are full of such virii .
 
if u attach ur pen drive to a already "infected" , it will be infected automatically as soon as u attach ur pen drive to it.
try to avoid using ur pen drives for data transfer on such infected computers.
wait one thing can be done.
1. shut down "infected" pc
2. boot into ubuntu installer's live disk
3. now attach ur pen drive and transfer data happily!!
 
main_trouble said:
if u attach ur pen drive to a already "infected" , it will be infected automatically as soon as u attach ur pen drive to it.
try to avoid using ur pen drives for data transfer on such infected computers.
wait one thing can be done.
1. shut down "infected" pc
2. boot into ubuntu installer's live disk
3. now attach ur pen drive and transfer data happily!!
Click to expand...
any other suggestions? how about doing this on a virtual machine? is there any GUI OS that loads really fast? doing this procedure is much better than taking a chance with an infected pen drive!
 
^ why not put a OS on pen drive itself and boot from it :P . I always do this with ubuntu but i am sure dsl linux will happily fit even on smaller pen drives . Still fact remains that it's way too much work for just copying files .
 
rapt0r said:
^ why not put a OS on pen drive itself and boot from it :P . I always do this with ubuntu but i am sure dsl linux will happily fit even on smaller pen drives . Still fact remains that it's way too much work for just copying files .
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but too less if u compare all the work u are going up to do if u infect ur pc.
yes putting os on pen drive is a good idea.

but most old pc(college/net cafe) dont support booting from usb drives.

also sometimes booting from usb drive may require u to change bios settings which may not a advisable .

even then it is a good idea. gonna add that to guide above.
thanx
 
Does this mean that pen drives shouldn't be used for ReadyBoost in Windows Vista (because of repeated reading and writing) ?
 
biosbhai said:
Does this mean that pen drives shouldn't be used for ReadyBoost in Windows Vista (because of repeated reading and writing) ?
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ready boost is already a dead feature wid ram prices so low now a days man.

getting a better/faster ram is much better option.
but answer to ur question is YES.
less the no of write cycles , the better.
 
dhirukholia said:
" unlike normal hard disks wid moving spidles , pen drives do not have slow and fast zones. "

100% wrong :P
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what is so 100% wrong in the statement??

mechanical hard disks are fastest at outer end
it is slowest at the points nearest to center.(run a hdtach test and u will see what i mean)
 
In my office only scandisk pen drives r detected. rest others are not detected. Do scandisk pen drives have some special files in it or anything as such? However other pendrives work fine in my home PC!
 
i believe there is some kind of software on office pcs which allows only a perticular pen drives.
try deleting all data on ur pen drive at ur office.

then see the contents of that pen drive using linux.(try ubuntu live cd for that)
see if there are any hidden files still on pen drive??
 
bhaskarvyas001 said:
In my office only scandisk pen drives r detected. rest others are not detected. Do scandisk pen drives have some special files in it or anything as such? However other pendrives work fine in my home PC!
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This is done using a GPO (Group Policy Object) It works in our company too. Maybe the SanDisk pen drive uses a different driver to get detected.

main_trouble : - If u dun know dun suggest anything like deleting and all. :ashamed:
 
Nice guide but
Instead i would prefer a guide on "How to Rma your dead flash drive"

Nice most drives comes with 5 years warranty.
:P
 
If write cycles do decrease the life on a flash drive, theoretically there would come a time when the drive would simply die of "old age". Would it still be considered for a replacement (what with Corsair having 10 years warranty, I am sure will face that problem, i.e if I manage not to lose mine before that :))
 
Vulc4n said:
If write cycles do decrease the life on a flash drive, theoretically there would come a time when the drive would simply die of "old age". Would it still be considered for a replacement (what with Corsair having 10 years warranty, I am sure will face that problem, i.e if I manage not to lose mine before that :))
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Yes :) Cos flash drive not workin implies replacement if under warranty.

So long as U dont cause any physical damage by banging it in frustration ;)

EDIT: Also, U need to save the bill till then ;)
 
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