USB drives – how to fix errors and format the drive

Created by Guy Smith, Modified on Wed, 23 Oct at 11:43 AM by Guy Smith

Solid state drives, including thumb drives, deteriorate over time causing the drive to become unreliable. If your SeeSnake monitor displays a file system error message or otherwise has issues capturing photos or recording video onto a USB thumb drive you can often resolve the issue by using a Windows PC to check the drive for errors. The process takes 2 - 3 minutes and this 90-sec step-by-step video shows you how. 


If Windows finds an error with the USB drive you'll want to replace it. USB flash drives can typically withstand 10,000–100,000 write/erase cycles. When the limit is reached, the memory may not work properly, which can lead to data loss or corruption. 
  • The physical age of the device isn't as important as how many times it's used 
  • Extreme environmental conditions can cause a flash drive to fail prematurely
  • Known brands like San Disk use higher quality memory components that last longer and are more reliable 
  • In our internal testing off-brand drives have failed in less than 30 days


For information choosing a storage drive please refer to this article:
https://help.seesnake.com/support/solutions/articles/150000192946-thumb-drives-and-ssds-storage-capacity-recommendations




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