5 Reasons to Not Store Data on a Flash Drive

I’ve used a number of USB Flash drives over the years to carry data with me, transfer it between work and home, or store school papers to print at the lab. USB Flash drives are immensely useful – and with storage in the multiples of gigabytes now, can store more data than common hard drives from just a few years ago. Though despite the benefits of the Flash drive and the common use for data storage, there are great reasons to not use a flash drive for document storage and transfer.

1. USB Flash Drives are Easy to Lose

As USB Flash drives have become smaller and smaller, they are much easier to lose. I’ve lost a few over the years and can attest to them falling out of my pocket or disappearing from my things. Flash drives are very easy to lose – a 2010 survey by CNN found that 33% of corporate users lost a USB flash thumb drive containing sensitive corporate data. Some Flash drives have built in encryption software. If you’re using a Mac, the OS contains an easy to use encryption software called FileVault. Windows 7 offers BitLocker encryption, but its less friendly for portable devices.

2. USB Thumb Drives Are Not Backed Up

If you do lose the thumb drive and you have any sensitive or unique data on it, chances are those files are gone for good. Most users do not have a backup strategy for their thumbdrives and once its lost, its gone forever. You should find USB flash drives that have some kind of automatic backup software on them.

3. Flash Drives Are Easy to Steal

Being so small, someone could walk off with your Flash drive and you’re not likely to notice until its too late. These drives are useful little tools and common thieves love easy to steal gadgets. In Virginia, an employee reported a theft of an unencrypted USB flash drive with the data of 100,000 current and former Virginia Tech students on it. The state spent quite a bit of money notifying those students.

4. Flash Drives Can Become Infected with a Virus

If you carry a flash drive to easily work on your files on multiple computers, you may find yourself spreading viruses between the machines. Flash drives are great carrier devices for viruses and many worm writers have taken advantage of them to get past a hardened wall by security administrators. Many companies and government agencies ban the little storage devices for just this reason: too many virus infections by clueless and unprotected users.

5. Your Files Are Not Personal on a USB Thumb Drive

If you connect your flash drive to a shared computer, you are not provided for a reasonable expectation of privacy for your files. If you mix personal and work files on your thumb drive and your network administrator installs a program to backup your thumb drive on connection, you could be liable for illegal files copied to your computer. Also, if you’re not authorized to transport company data on a thumb drive and you lose one, you could be liable for the data lost.

There are countless reasons to use a USB Flash Thumb Drive – they are portable, easy to use, store lots of data, and easy to carry in a pocket (or even built into a pen). If you do decide the risks are worth it considering all of these positives, make sure you encrypt the data and back it up frequently.

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