[tw04]

>or a malfunction of your Yubikey

Can't stress this enough. I had a yubikey nano that I literally never pulled from my laptop, that sat on my desk for basically the entirety of COVID. It just up and died after about 14 months. Fortunately, I had only set it up for testing purposes because I was worried about this exact scenario, and while I had a backup in my safe, had I been on my normal travel schedule that wouldn't have helped much.

The fact that it died after 0 abuse was a MAJOR turnoff for me ever proceeding down the path further. I'm sure my failure was a one-off but it left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

I get a failure of a key that's on a keychain or being beaten up on the regular, but failure from literally just sitting in a usb-c port for less than two years is... not a great look.

I guess this might be an expected failure mode too, because their warranty is only 1 year for manufacturing defects.

[nixpulvis]

On the flipside, I’ve had a Yubikey 4C for around 4 or 5 years on my keychain in my pocket, and it’s holding up OK.

Backup is a serious question though. I once started down this rabbit hole trying to type up a guide for using my yubikey and I found myself giving up when I realized there was no perfect solution.

[graton]

I have Yubikey nano in my laptop, desktop, and Linux PC. All of them are still going strong. I have four Yubikeys on my keychain, two of which I bought in 2014, and they also are still working without issues. None of my keys have ever failed.

[downrightmike]

Think about it this way: forcing electrons through a circuit is abuse. Since they bumble around like flowing honey looking for the easiest way out.

[aborsy]

Yubikeys are well constructed. I don’t think they die frequently before several years.