flash drives Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How long do USB Flash Drives retain their data?

Posted on February 28, 2026

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Question from Shaina: I have this USB flash drive with several hundred photos on it that I scanned during a recent visit to my grandmother’s house.

These are precious family pictures that will be difficult to replace if something were to happen to them.

I really don’t want to lose these photos and I was wondering how long I can count on the drive retaining them if I lock it up in my little fireproof safe? [Read more…]

Q&A: Will photos stored on an unused hard drive last forever?

Posted on November 1, 2025

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Question from Stella: I have thousands of family pictures that I’ve copied onto an external hard drive, which I keep locked up in a fireproof lock box.

My question is will those pictures last forever or is their lifetime limited in any way?

[Read more…]

How to prevent others from recovering your files from a formatted drive

Posted on March 2, 2018

I’ve written several posts in the past explaining how you can recover files that have been accidentally deleted from your storage devices.

It’s actually quite easy to recover deleted files using a free file recovery program such as Recuva.

But did you know that files can even be recovered from drives that have been formatted? Well, it’s true, and it’s just as easy as recovering files that have been “deleted”. [Read more…]