Please stop using flash drives for backups do this instead

Please stop using flash drives for backups do this instead

Flash drives are a convenient way to temporarily store files, or a fast way to move things between two PCs. Unless you've got very fast internet, or have invested heavily in your home network, a flash drive is almost always faster.

Despite how handy they are, they're not designed to store files over the long term.

Within each flash drive, there are billions or even trillions of little transistors that can take an electric charge. Some kinds of memory—single level cell (SLC)—can only store one bit per cell, which limits it to "holding" a 1 or a 0. However, there are variations that can store multiple bits of information per cell. It is common to see quad-layer cells (QLC, which store 4 bits), but there are experimental designs that go even higher.

When you combine enough of these cells, whether they're SLC or QLC, you're able to store meaningful data, like words, sounds, or video.

Why aren't flash drives reliable for long-term storage?

There are two main things that make flash drives a poor choice for long-term storage. One is a result of how they're designed, and the other is a difficult-to-avoid byproduct of how flash memory works.

Flash drives aren't as robust as SSDs

Typically, solid-state drives are designed for continuous use in your PC. There are several tricks used at both the hardware and software level to ensure they don't fail prematurely.

One of the most important design choices is in the flash memory itself: solid-state drives usually use multiple-level (MLC) or triple-level cells (TLC), both of which can survive having data written to them many thousands of times.

Additionally, SSDs use sophisticated wear leveling to ensure that all of the cells degrade evenly. That dramatically cuts down on the chance that one group of cells will spontaneously fail from overuse while others remain completely untouched.

Unfortunately, flash drives don't usually have these sorts of protections. They're designed with high-density flash memory (QLC), which is literally less durable than TLC or MLC flash memory—it can't be written to as many times before it fails. Additionally, flash drives don't employ the same kind of wear leveling that SSDs do, if they use it at all. That makes them more prone to catastrophic failure the more you use them.

Flash memory has a physics problem

When information is written to a cell in a flash storage device, an electron is added (or sometimes removed) to change the charge.

Usually, the process of changing the charge in a cell takes energy, which would make you think that so long as you aren'ttryingto change the state of the cell, it won't happen all by itself.

However, that isn't a case. Due to a counter-intuitive effect called quantum tunneling, the trapped electron can "tunnel" out of a cell all by itself, changing the value of a cell, even if you don't do anything to it. Interestingly, quantum tunneling increases with temperature, so storing a flash drive in a hot environment theoretically makes your risk of losing data higher.

One or two stray electrons tunneling out likely isn't a problem, since the odds of a few bits of information in hundreds of gigabytes being essential is pretty low. However, over time, more and more electrons will break free, which corresponds to more and more data corruption. Single-level cells tend to be the most resistant to data corruption, but they're extremely expensive compared to quad-level cells. On the other hand, quad-level cells can pack more data into a small area (which is why a flash drive the size of a dime can hold a terabyte of data), but they're much more prone to data corruption.

This slow corruption of data is calledbitrot.

Quantum tunneling might sound like it is nothing but a nuisance, but it is essential to much of our technology, and even most (or all) life on Earth.

For example, flash storage itself relies on quantum tunneling to trap the electrons in the first place. Additionally, quantum tunneling is necessary for fusion to occur in our Sun. Without it, the sun would be a relatively cold ball of hydrogen, much like Jupiter, and Earth would be a frozen wasteland.

The same effect that makes flash drives annoyingly unreliable as long-term storage is the exact same thing that lets the Sun shine.

What is the best long-term storage method?

There is no perfect storage medium, though flash drives are among the worst if you're looking for longevity.

Of the common consumer technologies, conventional hard drives are probably the best when you consider the mix of cost, convenience, and availability. I personally have a few from the late 1990s that are still in working order.

The main problem with hard drives is wear and tear on the moving parts. Eventually, all mechanical parts will wear out and stop functioning, even if the data on the platter is still there. If you're using a mechanical hard drive for long-term storage, you want to minimize how much time it spends active.

Archival discs, which include some premium CDs, DVDs, and M-DISC, aren't a bad option either. Some CD and DVD manufacturers claim their discs should be good for more than a hundred years if they're kept in optimal conditions, and M-DISC is expected to last about a thousand years in ideal conditions.

The major problem with any of those options is cost—they'rewaymore expensive per gigabyte than hard drives or SSDs. If you're looking to store something for your very-distant descendants, it is probably a worthwhile investment. Otherwise, I'd stick to mechanical hard drives aspart of a backup solutiondesigned to last 10 to 20 years.

Regardless of what storage medium you use, be it a flash drive, a mechanical drive, or old magnetic tape, there are a few things that are universally helpful if you want to extend your backup's lifespan.

And while it doesn't work for everything, there is something to be said for physical copies. We know that printed photographs can last more than a century even if you just toss them in an attic, so it may be worth the time to print some of those cherished memories instead of just relying on a digital backup.