Questions about "write/erase cycles" on a flash drive (USB Stick)

fox64

Member
I don't exactly know what constitutes a (write/erase cycles), but after erasing about 700 mp3 songs from a "usb flash drive" some strange things happened.

After I erased all those mp3 songs I went to erase another folder and halfway through the process it stopped erasing and said something like "file pathway name file" or something like that I can't remember for sure? Then the flash drive went blank and I had to unplug it and put it back in to get it to work.

After that I tried putting about 350 megabytes of mp4 and mp3 files on to the flashdrive and it messed up and said the message again. Then I just unpluged it gave up and put the files on a different usb flash drive.

My main question is. Will erasing 700 mp3 songs put a dent in a usb flash drives "write/erase cycles"?
Could I have corrupted the flash drive or was it all a coincidence?

This concerns me because I routinely erase hundreds of Files at a time from some of my usb sticks and I don't want to risk corrupting important files that I put on the usb stick. Im not sure If this is a wise practice?
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
If you're worried reformat the flash drive but it's fine. You're going to physically break or lose the flash drive long before you'd "use it up" in terms of cycles. Drive is probably just on its way out or not making good physical connection.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
My first guess is that the file path is too long to be copied over, especially when the error was something about the file path.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
My first guess is that the file path is too long to be copied over, especially when the error was something about the file path.
The first thing he did that gave problems was delete something, so this isn't it.
 

fox64

Member
My first guess is that the file path is too long to be copied over, especially when the error was something about the file path.

Yes I think it may have said that now that I think about it. If it comes up again I will write it down and post it.
 
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