- subscribe to this site
Solid state media - a tough nut to crack?
Posted by Mark on Oct 19, 2008
USB pens are part of everyday life. Small and portable with a high capacity, most of us can get most of our important data onto one, they are trusted, sometimes even as a backup. They have no moving parts, so they cannot crash like a hard disk, so they must be pretty robust, right? I’ll never need a data recovery from one will I?
Wrong!
95% of USB pens that we see for data recovery have suffered either electronic failure or physical trauma. For most file deletion problems where there is little file fragmentation there is little point spending money with a data recovery company when you can download a tool to get your files back.
The problems arise when the device cannot be accessed.
The most common problem we see is physical damage. USB pens spend much of their lives stuck in USB ports in PCs and laptops, they are relatively long so the leverage when someone knocks the end of the device can easily cause damage to the internal circuitry. The remainder of their existence is usually in pockets, and all to often this leads to spending a rather unwelcome spell in the washing machine or being sat on. Neither circumstance does much for the well-being of the device.
The lack of moving parts should not be taken as any guarantee of robustness. There isn’t a fast spinning disk as inside a hard drive and so a head crash cannot occur, but USB devices are built to a budget, we want them to be cheap. Also, circuitry and memory chips are prone to damage from static. So, they are just as likely to fail as is a hard disk, just in a different way.
Should we be afraid to use USB pens?
Certainly not, they are brilliant devices, it is hard to imagining being without them. We just need to appreciate what they are and not ordain them as some kind of miracle device that will secure our data. All things fail and over-reliance will mean that there will be pain when they do. USB pens are excellent for transporting data, brilliant for interchange, make an excellent place to take a quick temporary back-up, but they are not a robust data store.
