Leaving a USB pen drive plugged in

[zen]

Might be a silly question:

I have an 8GB USB pen drive, formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journalled). I use it for backing up text documents (8GB goes a long way).

Is it ok to leave the drive permanently plugged into my iMac? I don't know what the life of these devices is supposed to be, so am I risking damage/failure by leaving it in?

My computer is pretty much awake 24/7.

 

[kastenbrust]

Their life is about 10 years, although this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and leaving it in will give it a longer life than plugging it in and out and in and out.

 

[zen]

Oh great, so I'm actually making it last longer. Heh!

Cheers!

 

[BlueRevolution]

Their life is about 10 years, although this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and leaving it in will give it a longer life than plugging it in and out and in and out.

I think that's a myth (that it would last longer), but leaving the drive connected shouldn't damage it anyway. Windows Vista has a feature called ReadyBoost that allows it to use a flash drive to run faster. The drive would certainly be connected 24/7 in that case.

 

[kastenbrust]

I think that's a myth (that it would last longer), but leaving the drive connected shouldn't damage it anyway. Windows Vista has a feature called ReadyBoost that allows it to use a flash drive to run faster. The drive would certainly be connected 24/7 in that case.

Be warned, readyboost can cause the Blue Screen of death all the time if you dont use the right type of memory stick, and taking it out and plugging it back in causes the flash to discharge and uses up its life span. The worst way to treat them is to pull them out without safely removing hardware, or for mac ejecting, especially while a file is in transfer.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

It'll be fine, even if it's plugged in, it's not actually in use unless you are using it.