Comment by Xirdus

I feel like I'm the only person in the world who never had an issue with USB flash drives. Or HDDs for that matter. Or SSDs. I don't think I've ever had any storage die on me except optical disks.

Internet says both HDDs and SSDs have similar average lifespans, but with HDDs it's usually a mechanical failure so yes, you can often DIY it back to life if you have the right parts. With SSDs it's almost always the memory cells themselves wearing out. On the flip side, data recovery is usually much easier since SSD will usually keep working in read-only mode for a while, whereas a faulty HDD won't work at all.