My experience with #FlashDrives recently has been mixed. I have no problem in encrypting them with #LUKS, using #cryptsetup or with formatting a partition with #Btrfs, for instance, using #gparted and doing other tinkering with #Gnome #disks. But the problem has been with the actual drives themselves. The cheaper ones seem to have quite a few bad sectors, etc. and so they’re not really reliable for medium term storage.

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#Hardware #StorageDevices #Unix #GNU #Linux #Fedora

How-To Geek: 6 USB Drive Uses You’re Missing Out On. “Most of us use USB drives for temporary file storage, but they can do much more. You can boot an operating system, store and encrypt passwords, automate critical data backups, and more. If you have a spare USB drive that you only use for storage, here are some other ways to make the most of it.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/01/how-to-geek-6-usb-drive-uses-youre-missing-out-on/

@azonenberg I did.

In fact, I've seen #Flashdrives in the form factor of a credit card including a real chipcard!

Just noticed how the physical size of the memory sticks (aka USB flash drives) we have is inversely proportional to their storage capacity 🤭

#MemorySticks #FlashDrives #USB

@teajaygrey @halva @lynn @signalapp @deilann @monocles @Mer__edith @torproject

I remember #SLIC but sadly it never got traction.

• Needless to say #XMPP with #OMEMO & #PGP/MIME nowadays has excellent support by clients for every relevant platform and there are various other options depending on the use case, threat model and scenario.

I do gladly advice clients/employers directly...

• So far only #Tor and #Monero have reached a level of #decentralization that makes it basically impossible to shut them down even if (key) people working on it were to be arrested/forcibly disappeared/murdered (as had been the case!), with #SelfHosting-capable projects being close behind.

For example, #Briar as a "#airgapped" (or rather '#offline-capable') messenger may be the hottest thing if one needs to #chat with someone stuck exactly in the middle of North Korea and out of reach for Chinese, Russian or South Korean phone networks, tho that still relies on the local #SneakerNet (or rather #TrampingNet) to facilitate the transfer, which is rather common given the fact that #USB #flashdrives and #microSD cards are smuggled there en masse...

@HoustonDog and yes, I remember those #WinPE #hacks with rramdisk.sys to make #Windows run from #RAMdisk.

• In fact, @OS1337 literally does that when booting by loading itself into #RAM...
  

The idea of using #ROM chips is to have something long-lasting that is designed to be read-only without mechanical parts and not trivial to fiddle with compared to #USB #flashdrives.

@geraldew #Flashdrives having often no #WearLeveling is why they are cheap.

• As for #PortableComputing I recommend from experience to use a M.2 or 2,5" SSD in an external case (the M.2 will likely just be like a chonky flashdrive) instead, as they have better and more consistent performace and can handle a lot and randomized I/O way better.

In fact, I se that all the time...

Newly announced Samsung flash drives are now available for purchase

Samsung has been one of the biggest producers of flash drives, and the company announced some new models that are now available to purchase.

#Samsung #flashdrives #technews

https://techaeris.com/2024/08/06/newly-samsung-flash-drives-available/

Also it's not as if #Flashdrives are expensive...

• Even a reputable brand is cheap if one doesn't need speed or capacity...

4GB for €2,57, 8GB for €3,09 & 16GB for €3,59 and those are like retail prices and not buying a 100-pack in bulk...

• OFC don't buy cheap #USB #Sticks in bulk, because if you buy cheap no-name crap you get often 10+ year old counterfeilt garbage that doesn't even work half the time new out of the box.

Ask me how I know...

@SweetAIBelle Needless to say I'm convinced I can just boot @OS1337 from either a #USB-#Floppy(-#Emulator via USB Adaptor) or regular #flashdrive using #Ventoy, as #ISOLINUX distro...

• I've been using that for a while to do #multiboot - #flashdrives to replace #YUMI and not rely on the expensive #IODD hard drive / SSD cases...

I'll test it out today...

Luckily I have some "bare metal" to test against:

• Sony Vaio P11Z (Atom Z520 / i586 & sse3_atom)
• hp t530 (AMD GX-212 / i686, amd64 & sse4.1 )
• Zotac IONITX A-E (Atom 330 / i586, amd64 & sse3_atom)

Sadly I don't have much more "lower end" or "legacy" systems as a significant collection of mine got stolen from storage years ago and I don't have the money flying around to build @rasteri 's #Wee86 / #WeeCee... I was thinking about getting one of those Dell Wyse 3040 which AFAIK come with a #cursed #32bit #UEFI...

Sadly "Potato-level" #Netbooks running #VIA #C7 chips are nowadays rare and absurdly expensive and targeting those would be good as they already get too slow for mainstream 32bit distros like #BunsenLabsLinux so repurposing those as #OS1337 testing machines and target hardware may be a good option...
Tho just clocking down a #ThinClient with VIA Edenwould be sufficient to test out.

One of the machines that stolen from me was a Futro S300 with a #Transmeta CPU that I originally intended to use as #Windows95 box...

• Like with #Android - #ROMs I've to likely do custom .config files to target such hardware and stay within the 1440kB size Limit for or the "CORE Edition"...

Recently added quite a few finger-sized gadgets!
- Kingston DataTraveler Exodia 64GB
- Orico USB-C female to USB-A male
- PortaPow Data Blocker Pure - Prevents juice jacking
- Sandisk Ultra Luxe 64GB
- Kingston Ironkey Locker+ 50 32GB
- Yubico Security Key USB C NFC

Really happy with the performance of each product so far.

#usbflashdrive #KingstonIronkeyLocker50 #IronKey #yubico #yubikeys #Orico #portapow #juicejacking #sandisk #flashdrives #securitykeys #datablocker #usbcondom #newtoys

New gear day! Bought two USB flash drives for backup and bootable drives and a new 2.5" Samsung 870 EVO 500GB (finally) for the HP Mini 210-1100! The current drive is failing, fsck couldn't fix it and #antixlinux failed to boot. Can't wait to install it again. And if, for whatever reason, the HP Mini doesn't fulfill my requirements, I believe the drive will also work for my 2007 Macbook Pro which could be fun! #oldtech #870Evo #ssd #hpmini210 #flashdrives #DataTraveler #sandisk #samsung

OFC these #Scams with #FakeTech are as old as #flash media are....

I remember #bootleg #USB #flashdrives and #SD cards since the mid- to late 2000s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjVvlaCGGhA

@kaia Personally, I prefer real #SSDs over #USB #flashdrives since they have #TRIM, #WearLeverling and #GarbageCollection...

#LazyWeb, what are the best #USB #flashdrives at the moment (32GB+, 40MB+ sustained write). SanDisk have been really hit and miss, and as for Toshiba and Kingston, I don't think it should be legal to call it "USB3" while not meeting USB2 speeds.

Looking to spend about $50AUD per drive.

I've moved to USB NVMe enclosures for anything I'm really impatient about, but I still need a couple of #Linux rescue drives around and probably a Windows installer too.