USB Drives – Capacity, Life Expectancy, Recommendations

Drive Failure

Faulty or failing drives can cause recording issues, error messages on your monitor, and in severe cases can cause your monitor to behave erratically. If your monitor continually reboots or gets stuck in Record mode, removing and replacing the USB drive may resolve the issue.

• File system error message: Video — USB drives – fix file system errors
• Monitor locks up or continually reboots: Article — Thumb drives & monitor issues
• Lost or damaged videos: SeeSnake monitors are designed to prevent data loss and can recover lost or damaged videos. Article/Video — USB Drives – Recovering “Lost” Videos

Drive Capacity

• CSx series monitors — any drive size
• CS series monitors — up to 32 GB

Compatibility

• USB Standard: USB 2.0 or higher (virtually any modern thumb drive)
• Drive Format: FAT32 (CS and CSx monitors) or exFAT (CSx monitors) 

Note: if a thumb drive doesn't specify its file system on the packaging use this rule of thumb: 

• 32 GB or less is likely FAT32 (if needed, use a PC to reformat a 32GB or smaller drive to FAT32)
• 32 GB or more — almost always exFAT

Life Expectancy

Thumb drives use NAND flash cells that will begin to fail over time. High-demand uses like video recording will significantly shorten a drive’s useful life.

• Off-brand drives (especially bulk drives purchased online) may fail quickly or not work at all
• How often the drive is used matters more than its age
• Extreme environmental conditions can cause a drive to fail prematurely
• Video: Your Thumb Drive Has An Expiration Date!

Note: to prevent data loss, copy jobs you wan to keep onto long-term storage at regular intervals.

Brand Recommendations

Quality brands have better performance, reliability, and longevity vs. off-brand drives: San Disk, Kingston, PNY, ADATA, Transcend, Seagate, Patriot, OWC, Buffalo, Silicon Power, SK Hynix, and Mushkin