Re: Periodically formatting usb flash drive


"vauxall" <vauxall@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1151949014.611010.102190@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My usb flash drive, formatted as fat32, is so fragmented that its light
is flashing now and again.
I presume that's not good and could reduce its life. I wonder is what
we used to do in the old times (back up data, format and restore) could
help , and I wonder if formatting the drive is dangerous in itself for
a flash memory.


FLASH drives don't fragment in the same way hard disks do. The internal
housekeeping continues to write new files throughout the memory even if
previous files have been erased. It is not until the end of the memory is
reached does the drive go back to the beginning and start again. On the
subsequent cycles, it will try and use whole blocks where possible. This
is partly to maximise the life of the FLASH memory itself, but also to do
with speeding up the read/write cycles as this type of memory is only block
eraseable.

If the memory has become fragmented enough that there are numerous holes in
the memory layout, then formatting may be beneficial. All formatting does
is write a blank TOC and FAT tables. It doesn't actually erase anything.


.

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