[SOLVED] Long term storage of USB Flash memory

[jasper_27]

I have a couple of backups which includes Blu-rays, hard drives and usb flash drives

My question is regarding USB FLASH DRIVES.

Should I just left them for sometime or it would be a good measure to use them regularly or refresh the data they contain?

I am concerned that leaving them idle for some time would corrupt or do some harm to the module?

 

[mdd1963]

I have some tax documents I put on a 128 MB flash drive in 2005...

I checked them last year, and still fine.

However...

flash drives are so inexpensive these days (32 GB for $7?) that you could exercise several different options: keep at least two copies....

My advice would be to not trust any of them, and encrypt your data (even 7-zip incorporates AES256 bit encryption capabilities), and store it in 3 cloud locations as well...