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USB Flash Drives for Backup/Long-Term Storage?
cyberdigm is curious about this issue: "I am writing two books and have just recently gone through the trauma of having my hard drive flake out (physical damage to several sectors). Fortunately, while the OS instance was trashed, the file system is still intact, so I have been able to recover my files.Given that, I am now much more aware of the needed to regularly back up my files. I'd be interested in any opinions about the suitability of USB flash drives to help me solve this problem. The idea would be to store copies of all my files on a USB drive and back them up every day. I like that USB drives are generally fairly cheap. My concern is the long-term wisdom of this approach. Are there (practical) rewrite limits for USB flash drives? Is there a chance that the data would degrade on the drive over time? Other alternatives I am considering include external/USB hard drives. Of course, an overarching concern is that I'd rather not spend a lot of money."
which do you prefer?
why do people not realize that costs for the physical item are only part of a price tag?
comment directly in my journal
Second, since we *are* just talking about text, it might be worth your while to use email. I've got a community network email account that I do this with - email them important info, they store up to 15 megs worth of data, where it will pretty much sit forever.
Third, little more expensive: last I checked, a 512MB USB disk drive costs about $70 CAD; you can buy a brand new low GB HD for about that much. Just run two HDs on your system, sync the data every night, and there you go. HDs don't tend to flake out as often as you think, and this way if one goes, you've still got an onsite copy. Then just buy another $70 HD and keep going.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Also talked to them about an iPod - they have a business so they could have depreciated as a backup device :)
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
The more media types and locations, the better, but concentrate on the small percentage of your data that you couldn't recover by just buying or downloading another copy. Concentrate on your own personal data, and the job will be much easier to manage.
The USB drive will be fine as one approach--use it daily--but don't leave it at that. It's a convenient medium, but you want it to be able to fail without hurting you much. If you combine it with other media, you can enjoy the convenience without exposing yourself to whatever risks there may be.
Then get yourself Web hosting from some reasonably good quality host and FTP your files to your own website. If you're not very technical, the Web host can tell you how. You don't need to learn how to build a website to FTP files. The more important the data is, and the harder to recreate, the more you need to have it on the website. If you can just get it up there, they will do your backup for you. This assumes that you don't have tens of gigabytes of personal data, which could be a mistaken assumption if you are talking about photography, for example, instead of writing.
From time to time, burn a CD-R of your files (or multiple DVDs if you have gigabytes of important personal stuff), make multiple copies, and stash them in different locations: with your parents, in a self-storage locker, or whatever. That's too much bother to do very often (if you include the offsite stash), but it's a good thing to do occasionally. Just to be sure, check and see if the CDs/DVDs you burn can be read in your parent's, friends, or kids' computers.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Any kind of backup solution is preferable to a single point of failure. USB Keys may not be the best solution out there, but it is certainly better than having only one copy on your hard drive. I would look at more than just USB keys, there are certainly plenty of options for copying and making backups of your data, from CD-Rs, and iPods, to zip disks, and external USB/Firewire hard drives.
While a USB key is certainly portable and convenient, it may also create another problem - easy theft of your work. How easy is it to lose a USB key, or have it stolen. And what happens if the finder claims your work as their own? If you did use a USB key, I would definately not keep it with you, but store it in a safe and secure location.
In that vein of thought, since you are working on a book, do you keep hard copy backups? I know it would be a pain to OCR all those pages back in if you lost everything, but it would be better than starting from scratch. If kept in a fire retardant safe, they would fare much better than digital media would.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Dude, get a fan. That is normally the problem. Also, dont forget to send the drives back to the manufacturer... the will let you know what happened. ( normally a 3 year warranty). As a bonus you will get new drives.
btw- When did you get out of the steel buisness?
-- john galt
Yes it does. Merriam-Webster agrees with my usage:
One entry found for pedantic.
Main Entry: pedantic
Pronunciation: pi-'dan-tik
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or being a pedant
2 : narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned
3 : UNIMAGINATIVE, PEDESTRIAN