I love USB thumbdrives, and use both them and memory cards a lot in my work. I even have one particularly awesome high-capacity flashdrive that lives on my keychain and fits into my phone’s USB-C port.
However, it’s important to recognize what they are good for (merrily transporting files to and from various devices and between humans) and what they are not good for (secure file storage).
USB Drives and Memory Cards are not safe long-term file storage
Flash memory is less reliable than hard drives (or even burned CDs) , and flash memory wears out with repeated use. So besides being small & easy to misplace or damage, these drives can also become corrupted, and fail without warning.
What does this mean to you? Honestly, it’s not something that should stop you from using these for their convenient pocket-sized file-carrying and file-holding purpose! While catastrophes happen, they are not common.
However, do be aware that limitations on the reliability of this hardware exist. Don’t count on flash memory devices to be the only place you’re keeping important files and photos!
Best Practices
As the Techdonkey who is often sending or handing you files on flash drives, here’s how I work with them:
- Your file is on my working computer (1 copy)
- I copy the password-protected zipped file onto a flash drive and give it to you (2 copies)
- You take it home, open the zip safely and make a copy on your machine (3 copies)
- I confirm you have the file, and if the job is complete, I delete your file from my machine (2 copies; all in your hands)
If the drive gets eaten by your Labradoodle before Step 3 (above), I make another copy for you.
It’s worth noting that when I’m delivering file packages via secure cloud service downloads, I’m following the same style of file-redundancy process to get things safely into your hands.
One final note: There’s a certain level of virus / malware related security risk to plugging random USB drives into your device, as any prematurely grey-haired IT manager will tell you. That’s beyond the scope of this tidbit, but file it away from future remembering.