Cheap USB drives advisable?

[alljokingaside]

Hi,

Saw some great deals on 8 GB usb flash drives for cheap on Ebay. Cheap and made in China. The idea's to buy a few and use them as LiveUSBs, recovery disks, and minor backup.

I used to use DriveDroid as a LiveUSB until it fragged my 64 GB microSD (recovering everything was ....tedious. at best). Probably user error, but I'd rather not risk that again.

I've read enough online to know that I'm getting what I pay for, but- while it'd be nice if the storage space came as advertised, on the whole, I don't care if they don't have the full 8GB available. I do, however, care that they last at least for the foreseeable future. (eg I'd rather not spend any money for something that WILL break. What I care for is functionality. Somewhat for speed)

So. Is this advisable?

 

[JeffMD]

Life times are probably shorter, but speed is probably going to really suck. Just cause it says usb2 and 3 on it does not mean the flash actually transfers at those speeds.

Keep an eye out for samsungs and sandisk usb 3.0 stick combo pack sales.

 

[VirtualLarry]

When Newegg recently had both the Blue/Black and Yellow/Black A-Data UV128 16GB USB3.0 flash drives on sale for a Combo price of 3x for $9.99, with $2.99 super-saver shipping for as many as 5-6 combos (didn't check any higher), that works out to around $3.50 shipped for a decent, name-brand, fairly reliable, USB3.0 drive, that has a nice spot on the back that you can write on with a Sharpie. (Why I get these particular drives.)

They make perfect OS install USBs, IMHO.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

So. Is this advisable?

"cheap", "reliability" and "USB flash drive" are three things that just don't mix.

So, that'll be a no.

Generally, so long as you stick with reputable manufacturers, USB flash drives can be pretty reliable, but I wouldn't ever trust one with an important backup.

 

[bryanl]

Many flash drives and cards sold on eBay have only a fraction of their advertised capacity and even contain firmware made to exaggerate the actual capacity. The problem is so rampant that eBay even has a guide warning of this:

http://www.ebay.com/gds/All-About-Fake-Flash-Drives-2013-/10000000177553258/g.html

Test the capacity with a diagnostic such as H2TestW.

One major problem with cheap flash drives is very slow write speed. Typically the slowest major brand USB 3.0 flash drives can be written at 10-20 MB/s, but some eBay and minor brands may peak at just 5 MB/s.

 

[nerp]

Just spend $10 for a decent Samsung or Sandisk drive from Newegg. Sometimes they're on sale. I have a 32GB I got for like 5 and it's solid, strong metal and reviews include people who go on safari, cross deserts and climb mountains. No problems. Not worth saving pennies to get scammed.

 

[Mike64]

What size, and which USB version, are you looking for? How important is speed (especially write speed)? Run of the mill name-brand 16GB-32GB USB 2.0 drives go on sale for ≤ $10-ish constantly (and ≤ $5 for 8GB drives is not at all uncommon) at retailers like Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy and even Staples. You're not going to get a "fast" drive (especially one with good write speed) for cheap, but unlike the generic ones, at least you'll be able to find benchmark data for whichever ones you're considering, instead of having to judge by manufacturers' claims alone.

Unless you need like 50+ of them at a time for a more or less one-shot purpose (like handing out PDFs at a seminar or something), I really don't see the point in even considering buying no-name drives direct from China - it really just doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[angrynerdrock]

In the back to school section at walmart yesterday they were selling 16GB USB2 Sandisk drives for $5. Not bad if you don't need bigger storage or usb3