Reliability between external HDD and thumb drive?

[Multipass]

I've read that thumb drives aren't that reliable. Is that true?

Are external HDDs more reliable, even though they have many more components and moving parts?

Would you feel like a large thumb drive would be significantly less reliable to use as a backup drive than an external hard drive like (for example) a typical WD MyPassport Ultra?

 

[Weaselboy]

I've read that thumb drives aren't that reliable. Is that true?

Very true. You don't want to use a USB key as your only backup. The memory chips and controllers in those tend to be of low quality.

I have recently seen some higher end USB keys that supposedly do use better quality components, but the pricing ends up in SSD territory, so the value proposition just is not there.

 

[Multipass]

I was going to use Crashplan to backup both to the Cloud and to a local drive. I was going to use a thumbdrive as the local drive. But I guess that's not the best idea then...? I'll have to get a normal external drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

I was going to use Crashplan to backup both to the Cloud and to a local drive. I was going to use a thumbdrive as the local drive. But I guess that's not the best idea then...? I'll have to get a normal external drive.

Yeah... bad idea. Just grab a USB3 hard drive and you will be much better off.

 

[JTToft]

Yeah... bad idea. Just grab a USB3 hard drive and you will be much better off.

- What he said.
Thumb drives shouldn't be trusted for continous use. They're just not designed for it.