Question

What will happen if you put a usb drive and a magnet too closely together?

Answer 1

If you put a magnet right next to a USB drive, depending on the strength of the magnet and the amount of steel, nickel or cobalt used in the construction of that particular model of USB drive, the drive would either adhere to, or not adhere to, the magnet. This would cause no other significant effects. The storage of data in solid state form (as in USB drives) is not magnetic in nature, so no deletion or any other damage of the stored data would occur.

Answer 2

Before going to answer this first we have to know the various  types of materials that are present in an USB  drives.

The major materials of the USB drives are copper,silver and to some extent there will be gold plating also.

It contains the alloy like Brass also.

Irrespective of this it contains the integrated circuits[ICs] which are made up of semiconducting materials mostly like silicon.

From the above we get that a USB drive does not contain any type of magnetic materials.The data in the USB drive are stored in the form of electric charges .

Whenever a USB drive is taken towards a magnet and placed gently close to it,the magnetic field can't affect the data stored inside the drive as it is not magnetic in nature.The rest magnet cant not affect the the charge particles present inside the drive.

But if the magnetic filed has great strength and there will be any relative motion between drive and magnet,then it will induce a force on the drive which has still less impact on the drive. A magnet can hamper the stored data if that will be magnetic in nature.