How reliable are the 16gb SanDisk Cruzer *Glide* USB Flash Drives?

My local Walmart has the 16gb *Glide* flash drives on sale. I ask about reliability because I’ve heard that the Sandisk 16gb Cruzer *Blade* flash drives have been known to be wonky. More details at the bottom of this post.

Do the Blade and Glider flash drives use the same controller chips?

Will a flash drive purchased today still be using a controller chip manufactured in 2012?

How does this model compare to other Sandisk flash drives and other companies’ flash drives? FWIW, I’m not concerned about read/write speeds since I’m running it on a Pentium 1 that can only handle 1.1 speeds. I can’t remember if this particular model is 2.0 or 3.0 but I assume they’re all backward compatible.

The price is too good to pass up but I don’t want to risk a failed flash drive.

I know there are quite a few posts here and on other message boards about flash drives that suddenly turn read-only. I’ve glanced at them, but haven’t read them all. So if there’s some other information that I need to know, do tell.

Thanks for any advice or info!

Somebody posted this to another board in 2015

"I use the 8 GB ones for this. For data, it’s usually the 32 GB models. I have used the 16 GB models before now, but there’s a well-known problem with these, thoroughly documented on the SanDisk Forums…where for some inexplicable reason, they suddenly become ‘read-only’; and no amount of re-formatting or otherwise messing around with them will get them to work again.

"SanDisk are well aware of the problem, and their answer is that there’s NO answer to the problem; if it happens, send it back to them, and they’ll send you a free replacement…(??)

“Apparently, the rumour is that they purchased a large batch of slightly iffy controller chips from SK Hynix, back in 2012…”

What part of a “failed flash drive” worries you?  Having your data frozen, having a free replacement? 

My fear with my drives is loosing the drive, dropping it down a register, having it go thru a wash/dry cycle, having the data deleted. 

Having my data frozen. Supposedly getting a free drive isn’t a bargain if I’m not willing to part with the defective read-only flash drive that has personal information on it…

I posted these concerns because of the reputation that SanDisk’s 16gb Blade drives got several years ago. I’d still like to know how the modern 16gb Glide flash drive compares.

Some people with personal private data on frozen drives have reported they have been instructed to destroy the drive before returning it for a replacement.  The destroy permission was given within the RMA process.