what do you mean limited lifespan? Is it how many times you use the flashdrive or is it time alone?
It tends to be more about how often it's used and how much data is written to the drive!
I guess age could come into it if you include corrosion, but I've never seen a corroded flash drive so I guess that this isn't normally a "cause of death" for them!
Whats the lifespan of a well used flash drive?
Good question, someone else might be able to advise you a bit better, but I couldn't even try and guess. I've got a memory stick I've had for about 9 years that works fine, and I've had some fail after only a couple of years
I am planning to buy new sets of flashdrives every year or so, so I can drag and drop all my important files on to the new ones to safeguard the files.
Nice idea!
Always worth having files in more than one location as a backup (or using an online backup service like SkyDrive or Dropbox, they'll run their own backups too!)
Also can anyone answer my original question?
Can you just turn off your computer, then pull out the flashdrive? Is this a good solution? Is this a way around the problem?
You could do this if you don't mind having to shut the PC down, a USB drive is considered "safe to remove" when no data is being read from it, or being written to it. When the PC is off, then both these criteria are true!
The main problem is that you're not able to eject the drive though, please see the below snippet I've just taken from the Microsoft Forums, it might be helpful:
Method 1 a. If you open task manager, click ‘end process' on explorer.exe.
b. Click on file, new task, and enter explorer.exe, you should then be able to safely remove your USB device.
Method 2
You may also follow these steps & check if it helps.
1) Go to my computer
2) Right click on it & open Properties.
3) Go to the hardware section and find your drive and click properties
4) Go to the policies tab of the newly open window.
5) Check the option ‘optimized for quick removal'.