How Long Do USB Flash Drives & SSDs Last? (And 4 Things That Affect Their Lifespan)

Solid-state storage is one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century, doing away with bulky hard drives and allowing us to keep our data stored on devices that fit in the palm of a child's hand. Moreover, it's incredibly simple to use — just plug and play, drag and drop. The average computer user today has a range of convenient flash storage, from thumb drives to more expensive SSDs that live inside ruggedized housings and have their own cooling systems to support blazing fast transfer speeds. The most popular form factor is a USB connection of some sort, as it's the most universal standard that works across the widest number of devices.

But as with almost any tech product, these storage devices have a shelf life. You're unlikely to find many working flash drives from the early 2000s still lying around today, for instance. And that USB stick you got at a corporate retreat with the company logo printed on it? Well, it might not even have survived the weekend. Flash storage is susceptible to damage from a variety of sources, and if you're not careful, you'll reduce its lifespan by years, or even destroy it outright.

So, how long can flash storage last, and what can you do to get the most out of it? Short of never taking your drive out of the package, there's no way to prevent a little wear and tear from normal use. However, there are steps you can take to keep your files safely for years to come before your flash storage gives up the digital ghost. From proper storage to wise shopping, here's how long USB flash drives and SSDs last, as well as four things that affect their lifespan.

Solid-state storage is remarkably versatile, making SSDs and flash drives reliable and cost-effective, especially compared to the hard drives that preceded them. Those older, magnetic, platter drives had spinning arms that could rotate at up to 10,000 RPM as they wrote information to the drive, but they were extremely prone to damage from drops and other physical damage. SSDs, by contrast, don't have moving parts, which makes them much harder to damage. They can last for years, provided you treat them well. In fact, according to some technical estimates, a newer SSD made in 2013 or later has the potential to last for the better part of a millennium. Of course, that's impossible to verify quite yet, since solid-state storage technology only came to market about a quarter of a century ago.

However, in general, a rule of thumb is that a flash drive will last about 10 years. Again, this is not necessarily what you should expect, as it's more of an average than a prediction. Unfortunately, it's impossible to give an exact lifespan estimate for your particular flash drive. Quality varies by brand, and there is always the risk that any given unit may have an unknown defect. Further, the lifespan of an SSD is heavily affected by how much you use it, how well made it is, and other factors we will discuss below. So, let's say you want to pass your flash drive down through the generations as a family heirloom. What are the factors that can shorten its lifespan?

Solid-state storage is built to withstand a certain number of write cycles, and that's the most determinant factor in the lifespan of a given drive. Simply put, a write cycle is when you add data (in other words, transfer files) to your SSD. Depending on the type of NAND flash memory your SSD or flash drive uses, it could be rated for anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 write cycles. The total number of write cycles a drive can handle is expressed as TBW, which stands for terabytes written. The higher that number, the longer the lifespan of the drive. This is also one reason you shouldn't buy used USB drives, as their lifespan will be partially spent.

In other words, the more you use your SSD or flash drive, the closer it gets to the end of its life. This doesn't mean you should be sparing in your use. You could fill most solid-state drives to the brim and wipe them on a daily basis, and it would still take years before they'd be likely to fail. Accessing the files themselves, which is called reading, doesn't contribute to reducing their longevity, either. Editing them, however, does use write cycles. If, for example, you're a video editor who edits directly from external drives, one minor reason for doing so is to put strain on the external drive rather than a computer's internal storage. Another metric to be aware of is drive writes per-day (DWPD), which refers to how many times a drive can be written to its full capacity each day for the duration of its warranty. While TBW will give you an idea of the drive's total lifespan, DWPD will help you understand how much daily activity it can withstand.

One of the best things you can do to preserve the long-term health of your solid-state storage is to keep it stored correctly in the right environment. Because of the way flash memory works, it can leak electrons when exposed to extreme temperatures, making the drive unstable and causing failure. Whether you've got an SSD mounted in your computer, or a USB flash drive for your important files, making sure your storage never gets too hot or cold will help ensure that it lasts for years into the future. For example, you should never leave an SSD or thumb drive in your car, where it could be exposed to higher or lower temperatures than it can tolerate, or in a bathroom, where steam could cause damage to its components. Although some SSDs may advertise their ability to withstand heat or moisture, don't take such promises as an invitation to abuse your drives.

When it comes to SSD storage in your computer  — for example, NVMe storage increasingly common in both laptop and desktop computers  — you can typically check the temperature of the drive using diagnostic tools. For example, you can check drive temperatures from the Storage settings in the Windows 11 Settings app. As for portable SSDs like a Samsung T9, accompanying manufacturer software can often read the temperature of the drive. Most USB flash drives, on the other hand, do not have temperature sensors. Unless put under a lot of strain, such as when editing video files from them, they will likely not get very warm. You should still store them in a cool, dry place and avoid bringing them into extreme temperatures, though.

One easy way to obliterate your solid-state storage devices, or at least to corrupt the files stored on them, is to unplug them when they're in the middle of a write operation. Because of the way NAND storage works, data is stored in the cache before being written. This process takes longer for larger files. If the drive is disconnected in the middle of a write operation, or when it's flushing the cache, it's easy to cause a chain reaction, the end result of which is that your most reliable USB flash drive or SSD becomes a high-tech paperweight.

To prevent the drive from being interrupted in the middle of writing data, you can use the safe eject functionality in your operating system. On Windows, it's located in the system tray by right-clicking the drive icon and selecting Safely Remove Hardware, while on macOS, you can click the Eject icon next to the name of the drive in Finder. Although operating systems like Windows 11 and newer versions of Windows 10 have a built-in failsafe feature called quick removal that prevents the system from constantly writing to the drive, thus making it less likely that pulling the drive without properly ejecting it will cause issues, it's still best practice to use the eject function.

How long a flash drive or other SSD will last depends heavily on the quality of the flash storage inside of it, as well as the build quality of the housing, circuitry, and connector. In general, the biggest culprits for poor quality are likely to be wholesale USB flash storage  — for instance, thumb drives handed out as corporate swag branded with a company logo. The primary consideration for these drives is their wholesale price, so it's likely that they aren't using the highest quality flash storage, or they're poorly built and therefore more prone to damage. Another concern is that failed storage from major brands is often resold on the cheap as generic flash memory.

While it wouldn't be correct to say that price is always indicative of quality, it's somewhat harder to make high-quality SSDs cheaply. Some SSD brands are more reliable than others. For example, SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs are priced competitively against the Samsung T9 series mentioned in an above section of this article (a price delta of about $35 at full retail), but they also have a far higher rate of failure. We'll refer here to excellent reporting from PetaPixel, which noted in August 2020 that SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs were failing far too frequently to recommend.

At the end of the day, you don't need to worry about normal, day-to-day use of your flash drives and SSDs causing any issues. As long as you don't expose them to adverse conditions, use them incorrectly, or otherwise mistreat them, they should last you for years into the future.