The author was careful to restrict his comments to SLC drives, which have reasonably long lifetimes.<p>The newer, cheaper MLC technology flash drives have <i>far</i> less useful lifetime, somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000-10,000 erase cycles. These drives just won't cut it for usages defined here, though they will work fine in your cell phone.<p>See (e.g.) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Write_Endurance" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Write_Endurance</a>