Reliable USB flash drives

Paul Floyd · 2025-11-05T12:10:02+0000

MrBSD said:
Well solution is really simple then. Dont buy Kingston, and dont use FreeBSD.

And/or ask in a more helpful forum.

MrBSD · 2025-11-05T12:13:26+0000

Paul Floyd said:
And/or ask in a more helpful forum.

Yup. That works too. Good luck sir.

Espionage724 · 2025-11-05T12:13:54+0000

Code:

geom disk list

If any hint of the USB drive shows there, it's likely not bricked.

gotnull · 2025-11-05T12:31:45+0000

Paul Floyd said:
And/or ask in a more helpful forum

The forum is full of very nice and capable people, please don't think everybody are all the same.
Just wait for the right person to help you, add the necessary information when it's needed and be patient.
For the rest, just ignore those you don't appreciate like in real life.

ngnicholson · 2025-11-05T12:54:13+0000

Used loads of usb flash drive with FreeBSD no problems. Sandisk, Pye, HP & unbranded with no failures. Any error messages & did you sync before removal. The only usb drive i have had a failure with was a Sandisk that failed in to read only & that was on a Windows 10 system.

cracauer@ · 2025-11-05T14:10:51+0000

Paul Floyd said:
Non-bricked dmesg:
ugen0.15: <Kingston DataTraveler 3.0> at usbus0
umass0 on uhub5
umass0: <Kingston DataTraveler 3.0, class 0/0, rev 3.20/1.10, addr 16> on usbus0
umass0: SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0xc000
umass0:8:0: Attached to scbus8
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): REPORT LUNS. CDB: a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:20,0 (Invalid command operation cod
e)
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Error 22, Unretryable error

Looks pretty bad to me for a "working" drive.

bgavin · 2025-11-05T14:22:25+0000

I got a literal bucket full of Kingston 120gb SSD from a friend who was disposing of them for his company.
These are not flash drives, but regular SSD.

I have these running as the sysvol in client machines and my own.
They have run for thousands of hours without bricking.

The only SSD that has bricked on me was a Samsung 840 Pro.
I strongly favor Samsung SSD and figure this was a fluke.

For thumb drives, I was using Patriot Rage without problem.
Currently using the tiny Samsung FIT thumb drives, again no problems.

MLC technology has a finite WRITE limit.
SLC does not, but is more expensive and much harder to find.

I don't think it is a brand problem.

drhowarddrfine · 2025-11-05T14:27:33+0000

I've been dd-ing flash drives for as long as there have been flash drives to dd on FreeBSD (24 years?). I just use the cheap ones Microcenter gives away or whatever someone gives me for free. I've never had dd fail or brick anything and I do this on a daily basis.

blackbird9 · 2025-11-05T16:25:22+0000

cracauer@ said:
Don't use that garbage. Get an externel USB to M.2 enclosure and a 10-pack of small Intel Optane drives (about $5 each).

Which are some good optane drives to get? I've had a look around amazon... they seem pretty expensive?

RetroComputingCollector · 2025-11-05T18:14:46+0000

Do you use this drive all the time? It could just be that it got too many reads and writes and just failed.

cracauer@ · 2025-11-05T18:58:44+0000

blackbird9 said:
Which are some good optane drives to get? I've had a look around amazon... they seem pretty expensive?

I'm talking about the 16 GB M.2 ones as a replacement for a USB stick. They are on Ebay.

covacat · 2025-11-05T19:00:17+0000

5x Intel Optane Memory M10 SSD M.2 2280 16GB MEMPEK1J016GAL PCIe 3.0 Xpoint NVMe | eBay

Interface: M.2 2280. Capacity: 16GB. 5PCS x 16GB Solid State Drive. We appreciate your understanding.

www.ebay.com

blackbird9 said:
Which are some good optane drives to get? I've had a look around amazon... they seem pretty expensive?

covacat · 2025-11-05T19:01:49+0000

they probably have crappy firmware that nobody tests against heavy dd.
also all flash drives potentially suck because controller chip and firmware version are not stable even for same external markings

covacat · 2025-11-05T19:05:42+0000

the problem is that nvme to usb3 enclosure have their firmware quirks theirselves
search for rtl9210 problems with asus and many others

Espionage724 · 2025-11-05T19:07:38+0000

I use a 16G Optane drive for OS installs and dd images to it with a NVME-to-USB caddy. Sometimes I put that Optane in my laptop for a quick blkdiscard.

diizzy · 2025-11-05T19:12:09+0000

Paul Floyd said:
This morning I bricked a Kingston Traveller 64Gb USB flash drive when using dd to put 15.0-BETA4 amd64 onto the drive.

It's the second time this has happened. The first was just after I got a pair of drives and Kingston replaced it. Now it looks like FreeBSD was at fault.

Any recommendations for USB flash drives that FreeBSD won't brick if I use them with dd?

Cheap as chips USB drives will die quite frequently and are awfully slow too,

TEST: Kingston DataTraveler Kyson 64GB

Ergebnisse des Performance / Geschwindigkeits / Benchmark Test: Kingston DataTraveler Kyson 64GB USB-Stick (AS SSD Benchmark, HD Tune Pro, SSD-Z, CrystalDiskMark)

ssd-tester.de

TEST: Transcend JetFlash 730 64GB

Ergebnisse des Performance / Geschwindigkeits / Benchmark Test: Transcend JetFlash 730 64GB USB-Stick (AS SSD Benchmark, HD Tune Pro, SSD-Z, CrystalDiskMark)

ssd-tester.de

If you want a faster drive but a bit more expensive https://ssd-tester.de/transcend_jetflash_920_128gb_usb_3_0.html might be of interest.

Have worked well for me in various applications without breaking the bank but I would expect them to die at some point.

diizzy · 2025-11-05T19:15:47+0000

Paul Floyd said:
The drives in question are this model

Kingston DataTraveler Exodia M 64 Go - Clé USB - LDLC

Achat Clé USB Kingston DataTraveler Exodia M 64 Go (DTXM/64GB) sur LDLC, n°1 du high-tech. Clé USB 3.0 64 Go avec capuchon de protection et anneau pour porte-clés.

www.ldlc.com

The first one was bricked on my old HP Xeon workstation running 14.2-RELEASE
The second was bricked on my new workstation with an Asus mobo running 14.3-RELEASE.

I _do_ think that there is a significant chance that I'm the only one that is complaining about FreeBSD dd bricking Kingston DataTraveler Exodia M 64 Go USB flash drives.

I have one, it works but it's really slow (by design).

mer · 2025-11-05T19:26:26+0000

An interesting thing I've learned over the years with repect to flash drives: you need to wait.

You plug in a USB drive, you mount it, you write to it you even have sync enabled.
Once the kernel sends the buffers to the specific device driver and specific device driver to
hardware, user has no control.
Some/lots of hardware may do write cache/buffering.
What does that mean in practical use?
I mount a USB drive, write stuff to it (cp or dd), umount it. I leave it plugged in for at least 15 to 30 secs
so any internal hardware things can complete, then I remove.

I've been bit in the past by immediately removing.

Not sure if this relates to the OP, but I can see USB "corrupted" by not waiting before removing.

Paul Floyd · 2025-11-05T19:48:59+0000

RetroComputingCollector said:
Do you use this drive all the time? It could just be that it got too many reads and writes and just failed.

No, very rarely. Mainly when installing a new OS.

RetroComputingCollector · 2025-11-05T19:49:54+0000

Paul Floyd said:
No, very rarely. Mainly when installing a new OS.

Probably just a bad batch of units then.

covacat · 2025-11-05T19:52:21+0000

well they seem to have a phison controller...

Paul Floyd · 2025-11-05T19:55:37+0000

cracauer@ said:
Looks pretty bad to me for a "working" drive.

On Linux I just get

[ 63.200770] sdb: sdb1 sdb2
sdb2: <bsd: sdb5 >
[ 63.200870] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

No errors.

bgavin · 2025-11-05T20:23:52+0000

If you need speed, this is a handy reference.

Please click the green human to continue - UserBenchmark

sko · 2025-11-05T22:06:42+0000

covacat said:
they probably have crappy firmware that nobody tests against heavy dd.

covacat said:
well they seem to have a phison controller...

Phison controllers are notoriously unreliable and known for locking up or dying in a multitude of failure modes. There are several tools and *a lot* of guides available on how one can try to revive a locked up phison-based usb drive (and even SSDs).

Basically phison is to the storage world what realtek is for NICs - the cheapest crap available on the market and hence very widely used...

shepper · 2025-11-06T02:18:31+0000

Paul Floyd said:
This morning I bricked a Kingston Traveller 64Gb USB flash drive when using dd to put 15.0-BETA4 amd64 onto the drive.

It's the second time this has happened. The first was just after I got a pair of drives and Kingston replaced it. Now it looks like FreeBSD was at fault.

Any recommendations for USB flash drives that FreeBSD won't brick if I use them with dd?

Late to the party but was looking for a USB drive myself.
I think some USB 3.* drives have a firmware file that gets overwriten with the "dd" command. I had that happen with a Team Group drive and it was not uncommon. There was a recovery procedure, specific to windows.
If you use a USB 2.0 drive they do not have the phison controller or other firmware, and will not get bricked by "dd". They can be reformated either with an MBR or the whole disk w/o and MBR.
I've been searching for a cheap USB2.0 1/2/4GB drive and found several under 5 dollars. My local Walmart had a 3pk of 4GB Onn drives for ~$13USD but it's currently out of stock. A single 4GB drive is also out of stock.

There are also a number of companies that put custom logo's in small drives ~$3USD but you need to buy in bulk
https://www.ideastage.com/aisearch?s=Flash Drives

I think a red USB 2.0 drive with a FreeBSD logo would make some great swag for the project.