I have a computer that is connected to USB flash drives that automatically scan in a picture(1.3mb) every 2 mins. I am wondering if that count as a write cycle? MY stick is 128gb, so it will take about 10k+ times to fill the stick.
Because if a stick only has a 10k-100k write cycle then it would die before i even fill it half way.
Thanks
The write cycle is the measure of endurance or life for a solid state drive (SSD) and most flash-based storage devices. The write cycle encompasses the process of writing and erasing data in a multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chip, which eventually degrades the chip to the point of failure. It can be thought of like an eraser on a pencil slowly wearing away, until it is no longer able to erase.
The write cycle is a feature of a cell, not the entire flash drive. SSD drives have internal methods for protecting excessive writing to the same cells; basically the file isn't overwritten in the same place but in the (least used) free space, so it tries to use the entire space as evenly as possible.
This is why it's easier to restore deleted files from flash memory than HDD; they seldom gets quickly overwritten. This also means that having free space on SSD helps protecting it.
In your situation it seems like the USB flash drive is dedicated for this purpose only: you'll have up to 100k 1.3M slots * (10-100)k write cycles i.e. 1-10 billion times for saving that single picture. With your 2 min rate I surely hope this... up to 19,025 years is enough both for you and for inventing new technologies that can last forever.
