[BALUG-Talk] Flash drives for Lubuntu 14.04 4 bit

[Michael Paoli]

Well, small number statistics - not like I've tested dozens
(or even half that), and many brands I've not had experience with.
But within my very limited sample set:

All those that have failed have been effectively "no name"
freebies from trade shows and other giveaway events - all
handed (or sent) out by some (non flash manufacturer/seller) vendor,
though some lasted an impressive number of years with rather regular
use, but others failed in well under 2 years use - even with more
moderate write usage.  Of those "no name", none of them had actual
USB flash manufacturer/seller printed on them.  As for the USB
data, some had valid vendor IDs for vendors I'd generally never
heard of (or branding of a computer store chain), or an invalid
vendor value (e.g. all bits clear, or all bits set).  Some of 'em
also had USB serial numbers of all zeros (all bits clear) - whereas
those are supposed to be unique - at least per vendor and product
ID (effective make and model).

Brands -not necessarily at all "best", but if we (wildly) extrapolate
from my very limited statistics - essentially I've got zero failures
on these, and from largest quantity of units to least, and perhaps with
a bit of bias on more writes to less, top down, have at least approximately:
SanDisk
Kingston Technology
PNY
Lexar
and omitting some that may be as good or better, but have qty. 1 and have
thus far received rather to quite light write usage, and some of those
listed above towards the bottom only have qty. 1 - but have received
at least some fair and regular or semi-regular write usage over some
years or more without issue.

Perhaps someone knows of good reliable site that's well tested and
rated USB flash on reliability? ... I wasn't able to find such with
at least a few quick searches.  I have seen such reports at least
for some SSD units/brands tested - but that may not necessarily
correlate to USB flash.  Others may have experiences quite
different than mine.

> From: "Christian Einfeldt" <einfeldt@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [BALUG-Talk] Flash drives for Lubuntu 14.04 4 bit
> Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 19:13:13 -0700

> Hi,
>
> Thanks, Michael.  Yes, 64 bit.  Just a typo.
>
> Do you have any brand names that you recommend for heavy writes /
> rewrites?  Thanks again.
>
> On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 6:50 PM, Michael Paoli <
> Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>> Most flash drive should work "fine", or well enough,
>> at least if I'm guestimating the intended Lubuntu usage
>> correctly.  At least with what I've seen on most failures,
>> it's typically been lower quality flash media, with a fair
>> amount to fairly heavy writes/rewrites.  I think failures
>> are more rare when typical usage is read-mostly - and I'm
>> presuming that would be the case for your Lubuntu usage?
>> Would I be correct in presuming ISO images to boot from
>> on USB, and only occasionally updating the image on the
>> USB flash?  If so, the overwhelming majority of USB
>> flash out there should work quite well enough for that.
>>
>> For more regular writes/rewrites, reasonably good
>> quality does seem to matter.  And that doesn't always
>> strongly correlate to price, but there's typically at least
>> some fair degree of correlation.  Basically, for heavier use -
>> especially lots of writes/rewrites, usually decent name brand
>> stuff works longer and more reliably than cheap no-name/off-brand stuff.
>>
>> Your mileage may vary, but that's been my general experience.
>>
>> Also, if one watches sales 'n such, can often get 20% to 30% or more off,
>> at least once in a while - at least for physical stores ...
>> on-line "deals"/sales, may not dip as much in price.
>>
>> 4 bit ... I presume 64 bit?
>>
>> From: "Christian Einfeldt" <einfeldt@gmail.com>
>>> Subject: [BALUG-Talk] Flash drives for Lubuntu 14.04 4 bit
>>> Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 18:26:01 -0700
>>>
>>
>> Does anyone have any recommendations / precautions about which flash drives
>>> to use or to avoid for Lubuntu 14.04?  I am assuming that pretty much any
>>> flash drive will work.  I have never had any problems, but I just wanted
>>> to
>>> check to make sure.  Thanks!