[LINK] Archival Qualities of Memory Sticks?

[Brendan Scott]

Roger Clarke wrote:
> I'm trying to find out current wisdom on the likely survival time of 
> memory sticks / USB sticks / 'solid-state disk' storage.
> 
> CD and related technologies are well-known to have very short 
> life-expectancies, but what guidance exists in relation to storage of 
> back-ups on this alternative, now-ubiquitous storage-form (which now 
> seems to be down to about $5 per GB)?
> 
> Thanks for any leads!

Roger,

I have no idea, but I recently choose to buy a mini-DV camcorder over a hard drive or solid state one as it seemed to be the most likely to remain usable over a long period and the one more likely to have an acceptable failure mode.  Mixed up with storage is the file or file system or file container format used for storage (eg: AVCHD).

http://brendanscott.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/probably-buying-another-minidv-camcorder/ 
http://brendanscott.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/help-with-which-video-media-dead-camcorder/

I ran across something which suggested non trivial failure for flash media over 36 months of non-use.

Presumably the technology is also evolving rapidly...

Brendan