USB Flash Memory storage devices are a practical and highly portable method of storing and moving data between places. Flash Memory is highly practical for this task as it has no moving parts, supports fairly large storage and if used properly has very little chance of failing in any serious manner.
Unfortunately recently there has been a massive increase in the failure rate of these previously ultra reliable USB devices, so much so that the data recovery sector is now placing a lot of emphasis and time on USB memory stick recovery. The question has to be asked however what is the problem all of a sudden?
As with any storage technology over time costs drop and adoption increases and the humble USB memory stick is testament to this paradigm. From the time the technology went mainstream it has had a massive growth rate and recent years have seen a doubling of sales year on year . The expectation for the end of this year is expected top be circa three hundred million.
With such large numbers of devices actually being shipped and purchased by the consumers and increase in the number of failures is in reality inevitable, however the actual level of failure is a cause of concern and is reported to be running far higher than is acceptable.
When a previously very reliable product starts to have increased failure rate, just as in any industry the repairers (in this case the data recovery companies) start to ask why and often collaborate on their findings. Investigations have started to reveal that the actual memory chips in the drives have not failed at all and are working just as expected.
The failures are normally attributed to poor manufacture quality by mushroom companies in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China. These devices often make their way on to the market as unbranded devices, however there are huge problems with fake devices as noted by a leading and respected UK Based Data recovery company in this article:
These fake devices are intended to appeal to the greed emotion that is prevalent in all but a few consumers, but just because it is cheaper does not mean it is better. The manufacturing process may be cheaper in different world economies but the other factor that is immeasurable by the consumer is the quality of the components. Lower standard components are cheaper but just don’t last the distance in a lot of cases.
The best advice that anyone can give you here is to buy branded devices if the cost is affordable (which it generally is). And also ask your self this question, is the risk of losing all my data really worth risk of saving a relatively small amount of money?
You can find more great advice on data recovery here or for general computing advice visit the computer repair website.
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