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Might Flash Memory be a Viable Backup Medium?
General Books asks: "Rather than fuss over mechanical failures and damaged media, why not use flash memory for backups? We maintain about 100 servers distributed to customers' sites. Each night we copy a backup of critical data (generally less than 128MB) to removable media in case the hard drive fails. We have experienced high failure rates with CDRWs and so now I am considering some sort of flash memory like a USB key drive. They are solid-state and you can get a 128MB device for $20. They seem ideal to me, but I can't find solid evidence. One question is how would they endure a lightning strike (perhaps not as good as an optical medium)? Admittedly, there is a wide variety of CDRW drives and media but don't they all seem risky compared to a solid-state device? More info about my circumstances: We have no network for backups. A second hard disk is not viable because it could not be rotated offsite. Tape drives are relatively expensive and overkill for our volume of data."
When that place burns I want to be sure all the evidence goes up in smoke.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
If you carry it with you when you aren't actively backing it up, you don't have to worry about lightning, fire or whatever. If you are struck by lightning, burnt in a fire or in some other way destroyed, you won't really miss the data.