With students becoming more dependent on flash drives, some have learned about the risks and rewards associated with the technology.

Many students have adapted to changing times by utilizing flash drives to store files, pictures and other data for later retrieval.

However, there are downsides to using flash drives.

Last semester, one Baylor student misplaced a flash drive containing his entire portfolio, which would determine whether he passed his class.

Fortunately, after a mass e-mail was sent to students and faculty of various departments, the flash drive was recovered.

The incident served as a testament that data has become more important in everyday life, proving that it may require more care and attention.

“Part of the nature of these technologies is that we all become dependent on them,” said Dr. Gardner Campbell, director of Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor.

Jeff Burns, a West Lafayette, Ind., first-year divinity student at George W. Truett Seminary, owns two flash drives.

“I usually use them to save Word documents,” Burns said. “I’ve never had one fail on me.”

Another caveat of flash drives is their tendency to wear out. Flash drives have a set life expectancy that is determined by the number of times data is written and read from them.

Eric Ackerson, director of marketing at Patriot Memory, a manufacturer of flash drives, said that reaching this limit is unlikely for most users.

“In practice, they will never wear past their life expectancy,” Ackerson said.

But Ackerson added that many clients will try to take advantage of their warranty policy by sending in flash drives that have been physically damaged from incorrect use.

“A majority of RMAs [Return Merchandise Authorization] received are because the product was abused by the user,” Ackerson said.

Campbell said certain precautions should be maintained when using a flash drive.

“Formatting and not ejecting it properly can cause the data to become corrupt,” Campbell said.

As an alternative, certain online services are marketing themselves toward users who normally depend on storage options like flash drives.

Free services like ZumoDrive and DropBox allow users with Internet access to save and retrieve files, even with certain mobile phones. Both services offer two gigabytes of storage, with the ability to upgrade for a fee.

These services differ from traditional online backup services because they utilize a technology called cloud-computing storage. Files are stored in a virtualized drive, appearing on the desktop just as the hard drive would, allowing users to quickly save and retrieve files stored at a remote location.

After its introduction in 2005, BearSpace, Baylor’s network file storage system, has steadily increased its offering of 100 megabytes to students and recently announced an upgrade to five gigabytes. However, it currently lacks the extended features that cloud-computing storage offers.

Campbell said that the convenience of cloud-storage options comes with a trade-off in security. His advice is to regularly make backups of files.

“There is a need for multiple copies because this is important stuff,” Campbell said.