this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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you don't need the whole usb drive to fail. It's enough if a sector or two went corrupt, and you won't be able to open (or even see) a directory, or copying a file will stop in the middle. maybe files disappear too, and then at best they get recovered to FOUND.001 or such directory without path and name, maybe also just partially, or interleaved with other lost or deleted files' fragments
once I noticed failures on my ventoy pendrive because a specific bootable system had unexpected bugs each time I booted it. after I have rewritten it from backup, it was working fine again.
but bitrot works this way not just on pendrives, but SSDs and HDDs too. the system won't know unless it tries to read the file. SMART selftests may help. but even then, what good it is if it does not let you know actively?