The life expectancy of a USB Flash Drive can be measured by the number of write or erase cycles. USB Flash Drives Have Finite Number of Write/Erase Cycles If you simply write data to a USB flash drive and put it away in a safe place for 10 years, it will work again and all the data will still be there.īut if you continue to use it over and over again, it will definitely wear out eventually. But does the memory last forever though? Should you use them to store important documents and files? How long do they last? Furthermore, they are able to retain the memory even after the power is turned off. The advantages of flash drives is that they are portable, durable, and have incredible storage capacity (ranges from 64MB to 256GB as of 2010). USB flash drives are great to use for storing digital files and are replacing CDs & DVDs as the preferred storage media of choice.