Anybody know of a USB flash drive being damaged during a typical electrical storm or whatever other common electricity surge? (I'm not talking about a lightning strike close enough to destroy the whole computer.)
I'm wondering about the possibility that a hard drive and a USB flash drive could be destroyed at the same time, given the flash drive is always attached to the USB port, and whether that has in fact ever happened.
Thank you.
It can happen if the lightning strike kills the power supply and massively over voltages the 5V rail.
It would be safer to put the flash drive on a powered USB hub.
Just wondering Rod, how'd you come to that conclusion? More than likely the usb hub will be plugged into the same electrical source as the PC and therefore also be effected by the by the power surge. Would it not?
- Mike
Wall warts have pretty good safety measures.
I had a lightning strike near the house and it blew out several things in four houses total, mine got the worse of it.
However, my computer was on a UPS and the network connection went to a router then to the modem.
The UPS, cable modem, and router were fried (along with other things in the house) but the computer itself was unaffected.
So, I doubt a normal electrical storm, etc. would blow out a drive or USB drive.
-g
And computer SMPS dont?
"JAD" wrote in news:aShth.117$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe05.lga:
not!
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For the reason I mentioned in the quoting you snipped and I have restored.
as the PC
Yes.
Nope, not when its a simple wall wart plug pack for the powered hub.
Fraid not.
Nope, quite a few of the cheap ones die very spectacularly indeed, over voltaging what is powered from them.
Transformer based wall warts are much less likely to be damaged by the sort of lightning damage he was asking about.
Corse the transformer base wall warts do with the sort of lightining damage that was asked about, just due to the transformer alone.
Pity about those used without a UPS.
hmm.. I would have thought otherwise. I guess you learn something new every day.
- Mike
That makes sense when I think about it... You're saying the SMPS will essentially blow up and allow unregulated current through where as the transformer will continue to reduce voltage although not all the way to 5v it will still probably be in the safe range for the flash drive.
Michael Kennedy wrote
Yeah, its more subtle than it looks initially.
through
No, I am saying that that CAN happen. ATX power supplys are supposed to be designed to not let that happen, but it does happen, particularly with the cheapest power supplys that are pared bad component wise.
way to 5v it will
No, its more complicated than that too. A transformer based wall wart wont usually get damaged by that sort of lightning strike he asked about, essentially because the spike has to get thru the transformer to damage the voltage regulator. That isnt likely because of the massive impedance of the transformer to the spike. And even if the voltage regulator does get zapped, the most that you can get on the output is the unregulated voltage which wouldnt normaly be more than about 10V at most with a 5V plug pack. Whereas with the ATX SMPS that has been killed by the lightning strike, the unregulated over voltage would likely be a lot higher than that and with much more current available too.
Well, but most wall warts are SMPS based too these days. On the other hand, even SMPS use transformers. So I doubt there´s a difference.
Sebastian
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