Remote Backup UK Online Backup and Storage

Flash memory storage media has become the most popular form of portable storage in the world today notably because of the ease of use and flexibility of USB devices and helped along by both the reliability of USB flash memory and of course the ever increasing amount of data that these devices can now hold, which is a plus point for many users.

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?

USB memory sticks are dropping in price all the time as with any technology as it ages and gains mass market adoption, and year on year growth in shipment of these devices has a run rate of around 100% meaning by the end of this year unit sales are expected to be in the region of a staggering 300 million.

With such large quantities of devices arriving in consumer’s hands, there is, of course bound to be a number of failures experienced in the field. What data recovery experts at Flash Data Recovery have found is that failure rates could be running at up to 5% – this relates to a tremendously high number of devices failing in the field, up to 15 000 000 devices per year!

So why is it that a storage media famed for its reliability fail in such high numbers? Well in about 98% of cases it is not the Flash memory that fails, in fact, following a failure it is not uncommon that the NAND memory chip within the USB device is found to be in perfect working order.

Consumer demand for cheaper goods and services invariably leads to driving manufacturing abroad and in this case to the far east where a lot of the premature failed devices seem to originate. The biggest culprits seem to be the generic unbranded memory sticks found cheap on auction sites. Notably though there is also a huge increase in the number of fake devices finding there way to the market.

Such devices often misidentify the actual size of the Memory Storage that they provide, they use poor quality components including cheap crystals and microcontrollers. Whilst they work fine for a short period, when they fail or the available storage room is filled, problems almost always occur, these problems often feature data loss or corruption.

In order to avoid this problem I recommend only purchasing brand named devices from reputable suppliers. Remember, as with anything, if the price or claims seem too good to be true, they normally are.