The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

I want to try a 1TB USB flash drive to store photos, videos and other files. Tell me, who already used this method of storage, how reliable it is?

I use several USB drives for different purposes, including media storage, although none matches that capacity.

IMHO, these are aspects one should consider:

- Given that flash storage used in pendrives is consistently slower than most modern media (i.e., SDD or NVMe), the larger size will incur a significant time penalty in all bulk filesystem management operations;
- There are many roadblocks in USB storage use that must be considered -- meaning port compatibility and capability, filesystem format, etc. -- resulting that, e.g., to this day I haven't managed to consistently use USB external storage with my Android mobiles, for instance;
- As they're easy to misplace or damage, a backup strategy is of the utmost importance.

That's the gist for myself, but I'm sure others will have further points to make...

A very interesting question ..... and many, I mean MANY aspects to consider.
Just a short answer:
From my experience, the file system corruption of a USB flash drive is more frequent than you think.
I have experienced the corruption of a USB flash drive .... beyond recoverability .... I tried everything!
The larger the capacity of your USB flash drive, the more you risk to loose ... a lot .... And who wants to take the risk of loosing 1TB of data?
IMO if you want to store 1 TB of data , you should first consider duplicate / clone / backup your USB flash drive on a regular basis.
Second, you should format your USB flash drive with a File System that offers some degree of data integrity, such as a journaling file system (i.e. NTFS versus FAT32) --> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system.
Note, if your file system is not the typical standard NTFS or FAT32, you must have a "File System Reader" compatible with your operating system. Linux may have more tools to read specific files systems that you may want to use on your "backup flash drive".
Third, you should also consider the compatibility of the File System limits with the size of your files ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... le_systems )

Just to add my 2c:

- I think a portable SSD is faster and more reliable than using a USB memory stick, at the expense of a larger form factor

- Backup, backup, backup. Number 1 rule of IT: without backup, you can be 100% sure to kiss your data goodbye some day.

Andrew Lee wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:03 pm without backup, you can be 100% sure to kiss your data goodbye some day.

Agreed. Buying one of these devices for my purposes means buying 2 or just treating them as a temporary medium to move files around. For files that I can't keep on my main laptop, I have two 4tb HDs that are mirrored.