USB drive on server?

[Timothy Murphy]

John Summerfield wrote:

> Some years ago, someone on one of these lists - probably back in
> Valhalla's time, reported clobbering his cf first time he used it.
> 
> Folk surmised it was because it was automounted with the sync option,
> preventing writes from being cached.

On the other hand, I read many reports of machines using flash drives,
particularly for things like set-top boxes and audio devices
(often based on VIA EPIA motherboards),
where I presume there are many writes.
I've never seen any kind of warning with these,
or statement about limited life.

There really seem very mixed messages on this.
[I'm interested in a fanless server using a flash drive -
I find the idea that there would be no moving parts attractive.]