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SSD drives, USB sticks, and memory cards: what you need to know
Unlike mechanical hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks and memory cards are based on flash memory and have no moving parts.
A flash device may not be recognised by the system due to dirty or defective connectors. Carefully cleaning them with the help of a cotton wool bud, lightly dipped in alcohol, then letting it dry thoroughly, may solve the problem.
Alternatively, it is possible that access becomes difficult, or even impossible. This is often linked to a failure in the storage unit clusters. If the SSD, USB or memory card is new, this could be a defect covered by warranty. In other cases, it could be due to excessive usage or wear and tear.
It is important to know that flash memory units have several writing/suppression cycles limited for each cluster, going from 1,000 to over 100,000 depending on the quality of the product. When this limit is reached, access is more difficult and it becomes a pressing matter to consider saving the data elsewhere. If the drive becomes totally inaccessible, professional data recovery is necessary.