error writing fsbn, too soon on a new flash drive

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

My 3 year old laptop internal hard drive had started showing "error
reading fsbn". The drive is still working, but I suppose that's a sign I
should prepare to replace it.

As a quick measure I installed NetBSD on an unused USB 2.0 64GB Sandisk
flash drive (aka stick/pen drive). It worked fine for a week or so.

I haven't done any major disk write exercise such as any builds etc. on
this drive. But within a week of usage it started showing "error writing
fsbn". It hung at "checking filesystem" and after a long wait I had to
reboot it.

But it booted fine this time around and as yet hasn't shown any sign of
fsbn error.

Following questions come to mind now:

- Is it a workable idea to use a usb flash drive as the main disk i.e.
  would it last for 2/3 years with regular daily usage, which is not disk
  intensive (particularly no major and frequent builds on this drive). No
  major use of swap.

  If someone is using / has used such setup, please do share your
  experiences.

- Since I faced fsbn error on an almost new and unused flash drive, which
  rebooted fine on power cycle with no sign of the same error now, what
  are the chances that this error was a false alarm and I can continue to
  use this drive for some time now?

Mayuresh