Why USB flash drives dies ?

[haiku]

Hi,

I am using archlinux since 3 years on pogo E02 (and a mobile) running archlinux on USB flash drive and i sadly experienced several deaths .
Few months ago I have "burned" a Transcend Flash 620 8GB then an EMTEC C400 8G and yesterday, a Kingston DataTraveler G3 8G. I was certain those drives where healthy before. (I always test them with a "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512")

So what, am i unlucky ? Are USB sticks unreliable to run ALARM permanently ? Should i buy an expensive life-time warranty's USB flash drive ?

Thanks

[moonman]

Just buy a hard drive and use that for rootfs. Flash drives are not designed to be constantly written to. They do wear out. And if you have a swap file on it don't expect it to last very long.

[haiku]

Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have a swap on it nor i write that often.. But, i do read constantly, i doubt it's a problem for USB flash.
Maybe i have to look for an SSD but it's expensive for my needs. I just desire some reliable GB

[haiku]

I measure the USB voltage, it is ~4,98V. Also, i try to find what were the most active writer using iotop and i've disabled the nginx access log. Let see how long my new stick will live