markwilson.it

USB flash drives can be washed at 30 degrees

Written by

Mark Wilson

in

As I emptied the laundry from the washing machine this morning I noticed something small and brightly coloured wedged against the rubber seal by the door and realised with horror that it was the USB flash drive that had been in the pocket of my jeans. USB flash drive with 30 degree wash symbol“Oops”, I thought (or something similar that can’t be repeated in front of the kids), “I didn’t mean to do that…”.

Well, after a few hours in my pocket, making sure that it stayed warm and dry, I decided to try and use the device and it seems everything is fine. Probably not recommended though.

Comments

8 responses to “USB flash drives can be washed at 30 degrees”

  1. Tamás Lepenye avatar
    Tamás Lepenye

    My brother had the same “experience” :-) Both of you were really lucky.

  2. Andy Parkes avatar
    Andy Parkes

    Makes three of us that are really lucky as i did exactly the same thing..

    The only difference in my case is that it went through the tumble drier as well!!

    It was one of the first USB drives i ever owned and it still works to this day

  3. Mark Wilson avatar
    Mark Wilson

    Yeah, I should point out that the title of this post should not be taken too literally… your mileage my vary.

    For those who really would like to waterproof a thumbdrive, check out the Systm podcast episode on the subject.

  4. Mark Wilson avatar
    Mark Wilson

    And apparently it might still fail due to rust… a little WD40 does the trick, or so I’m told.

  5. mark avatar
    mark

    there really isnt anything in a flashdrive that could not be washed. as long as the drive is dry again before you plug it in it will not be damaged by water. I had a few washed and tumbled and they still work.

  6. Simon avatar
    Simon

    It might be worth mentioning that iPod Nanos however, can not be washed – even in a cool 15 degrees wash.

  7. Mark Wilson avatar
    Mark Wilson

    Oh no… Simon… you didn’t… did you?

  8. Simon avatar
    Simon

    yeah… it was the old one mk2 one. That said, it was a free gift with a phone contract and the person responsible did allow me to splash out on a 60gb 5G iPod – so when all’s said and done, it was quite a good thing to happen!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More posts