OK to leave USB Flash drive plugged in 24/7?

[cjcard]

I have a USB flash drive (PNY, 128 MB) which I would like to leave plugged into a computer at all times. The computer will be running 24/7. Will this shorten the life of the drive? I am told that these drives have a limited number of read/write cycles and that Windows XP's constant polling of the device will shorten its life.

 

[CraigRT]

I really can't see how that matters, nor how it could shorten the life. The beauty of solid state is that there are no moving parts. As long as the "flash drive" (hence flash memory) does not contain a spinning hard drive, I'd say leave it plugged in for as long as you want, and nothing should happen.

 

[herm0016]

i dont leave mine puluged in because it gets fairly warm and the one enemy of solid state is heat.

 

[CrispyFried]

There is a finite number of writes (like 10,000 to 100,000 is the figure I remember off the top of my head) but reads are "free". So as long as you dont write to it youre OK and I dont think windows polling it writes anything to it. Just dont schedule it for a nightly defrag

 

[Jiggz]

Keeping it plugged in doesn't automatically mean you write to it everytime. Sure it will get warm but this is because of the led indicator and not because it is being cycled or written on. Go forth leave it on and tell us how long it takes before the things dies on you. I've had mine for more than 2 years and it's still plugged in and working as usual.