If I have a zip file on a thumb flash drive and I want to unzip it to hard disk, is there any write activity on the flash drive, or is it reading only?
Because if there is any writing, I would want to copy the zip file over to the hard disk first to avoid flash drive wear.
Unzipping compressed files (including .zip files) does not require any writing to disk. All decompressed data is stored in RAM, and then copied to the destination. So if you unzip an archive from a flash drive, to an HDD, then there's no write activity on the flash drive.
I should also point out, depending on the flash drives age/make/model, you shouldn't need to worry about write cycles.
