USB thumb drives may have faded from everyday use, but many people still keep important files on them. According to a recent Engadget report, that is a risky habit. The drives are physically fragile, prone to being lost, and their flash memory degrades with use and age. Even without heavy use, the tiny electrical charges that store data can leak over time, causing bits to flip and files to corrupt.
The report notes that thumb drives cannot run TRIM commands like modern SSDs, so they cannot recover lost write capacity. Connectors and controller chips can also fail from impacts, corrosion, or poor manufacturing. In humid environments, mold can contaminate the drive. These risks add up, which is why the author recommends migrating data off older sticks and creating backups before it is too late.
For important data, the commonly cited 3-2-1 strategy applies: keep at least three copies, on two local devices, with one copy in the cloud. The article warns against relying solely on cloud storage, citing subscription fees, outages, and potential privacy concerns with service providers. An external SSD or a second internal drive is a safer primary backup, while the cloud serves as an off-site fallback.
The source is a single Engadget article, so there are no differing viewpoints to compare. Its advice is clear: treat old thumb drives as temporary storage, not archives, and back them up before failure or corruption makes recovery impossible.