In article , Paul
wrote:

A good rule of thumb in 2018 is, *don't* use USB sticks
for archival storage.

nothing is truly archival.

They're for point-to-point transfers
via sneaker-net. Don't write 20 years worth of bank statements
on them, and bury the sticks in the back yard, because when you
dig them up, the data will be gone.

not necessarily. i have 15 year old usb sticks that are still readable.
they're just too small to be of much use anymore.

the takeaway is never have only one copy of anything important, and
ideally on different types of media and in multiple locations. storage
is cheap. replacing (or recovering) data is not, if it's even possible.