Hi guy! I just wonder if you can tell me why a USB Flash memory dies? What is the reason behind its breakdown? Thanks Atte

Silicon fatigue. or something gets suddenly fried inside. Why RAM stops working? The same thing.

Another thing that kills them is taking them out without stopping them with the little Icon that appears in the task bar first. I see loads of people doing this.

I put mine through the washing machine - still works but lost half it's capacity, so I imagine one bank of memory died.

@Gog_CA1 You sure about the washing machine?? I would had thought it be a river.........there the ones with the banks :)

Phil, I don't think that taking them out without stopping would kill them outright. You see, the port is constantly under current. Stopping just tells Windows to finish doing whatever they do with the disk so the data doesn't get corrupted by an abrupt loss of connection. BTW, I just got a USB stick that comes packaged into a nylon baggie with water inside. Waterproof. Gog, you'd need that, although the temperature might still kill the stick. :-)

USB Memory sticks do have a limited life time, it's in the many many many thousands of read/writes (10s? 100s? I can't remember).

Thank you guys; my USB Flash mem. died after about a year far from its lifetime (100 000 writings); I used it for downloading when surfing in the library and I didn't misuse it in any way. I'm pretty disappointed in these Flash sticks; I hoped for a longer lifetime not only about 10-12 months. Also, the computer manufacturers talk about Flash Harddrives in computers; it won't be fun when your Flashdrive dies after a few months losing all important data...:-| Regads Atte