Memory Sticks Versus Hard Disc Drives

Like all devices sooner later they are prone to fail. Sounds like your friends have had that experience. But we are talking back up. Whats the chance that both fail at the same time when you need it? Some of the new hard drives available are solid state devices. Which are suppose to be more reliable and with faster transfer rates then a conventional hard drive at 7200 rpm.

Personally I don't use a flash drive for back up. For the value a hard drive has a lot more space. With USB 3.0 transfer rate I run a continuous back up using Acronis Home Image. Check it out the software is a pretty good tool. Relatively inexpensive.

A problem with memory sticks (and solid state hard drives) is that they have a limited number of write cycles. That could be a problem for some uses. But, I'd expect that limit to be in the range of 10,000 to 100,000 or even higher, so I don't really see it as an issue unless you leave the drive plugged in and are somehow doing continuous backups. (That is, every time something changes on the hard drive, the system automatically backs it up to the memory stick.)

Solid state drives have (or should use available) special software to help minimize the number of write cycles to the drive to get around this problem.

You don't say what operating system you are using.

If it is one of the Microshaft offerings: There is a backup utility, check out Start>Help and type "backup" into the search box (to much to post here). One of the attribute flags is "A" for archive. Whenever you backup a file windows clears that flag, and only sets it when the file has changed - that will reduce the amount/time for transfer.

As far as the USB stick, the others are right, they can fail - so can anything. It is a matter of MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures), and how important the data is to you. You are always best using multiple backup devices/media if the data is critical. If it isn't critical, but something you don't want to lose like pictures, music... then I would use the flash drive. but backup to DVD or a hard drive periodically.

Just my take on it

Just to add to all the excellent advice above:

Most professional IT types do at least 2 backups; ie, a backup and a backup of the backup, the second preferably being offsite, whether via network or hand carrying the backup media elsewhere. There is nothing dumber than having great backups and then have the facility burn down.

Hooker

The aspect of reliability has already been well addressed.

It is about intelligent back-up that i wanted to mention what i do.... i use a freeware called 'SyncBack'. This one compares various attributes of the source and destination files, and copies/overwrites only those where there is a change. i back up about 100 GB in about 15 minutes. Please take a look at it.

Hi John,

I use a flash drive for a back up, but occasionally make a second one to a CD Rom. Flash drives can become corrupt if you forget to stop them before removal, and for other reasons. I only back up my files when I make a change, so if my system fails, I will have to reinstall.

-S

Also have to keep in mind that CD's also have a shelf life.

It is a never-ending shell-game

Gold CD's have a shelf life in hundreds of years.

Re: Gold CD's have a shelf life in hundreds of years.

I think this is a prediction. ;-) It depends very much on storage conditions and other factors.

(I presume you're talking about plastic CDs with gold (colored) foil rather than solid gold CDs.

If you have some solid gold CDs, I offer a free (sometimes destructive) testing service. ;-)

I'm not an expert either. I do use the flash drive for a backup. I don't do nearly as much, so 2 gigs is fine for me. I keep a photo backup on another flash drive, and get a new one every year so photos are easier to find. One year's worth is moved to a CD every year. Yes, the flash drives do have a limited number of read-write cycles--that's why they suggest you DO NOT defrag a flash drive. I also do not run a backup program to a flash drive. What I do is to save everything twice--once to the hard drive, and a second time to the flash drive. That way all my files are backed up, but I don't save an unmodified file--minimizes the writes. Every 3 months I run Acronis to backup to an external hard drive.

My own question: My computer is getting slow, even with virus scans and defragging, because the HD is getting full. I'm thinking of getting an external HD and put all my files there, and keep the desktop HD just for the programs. Is this a valid solution?

Yes, I think it is, as long as you have a second back up too.

That sounds OK to me, but as long as you've got Acronis and are planning on getting a new drive, anyway, how about using Acronis to transplant your existing system and files over to the new (larger capacity, I assume) drive and put the old one into an external drive case for backup storage? That way you would be moving everything to a newer, presumably more reliable, drive and still be able to have double backups. Just make sure not to kill the old drive's contents until you're 100% satisfied with the new one!

Spook

John,

I'm not an expert on all things computer, but I have had a couple of memory sticks that suffered failure of one kind or another. They're OK, but I've personally almost quit using them in favor of a USB-connected external drive.

This seems to work well and allows plenty of space to make copies of the different revisions instead of writing over the files. It also provides space in case you want to 'ghost' a drive. This is a whole different level of backup protection, wherein you can chose to make a backup of just the important files or the entire drive, depending on your needs. It may be an overkill in your case, though, and one of the downsides is that the external drive is not as portable as a flash drive. And, being a magnetic media, it's a good idea to keep them away from sources of strong EM fields.

Hooker's right; you can't beat having multiple backups, regardless of your chosen technique. If you can maintain access control, plus follow his recommendations, that seems like it would be a pretty decent setup.

Spook

If you only backup in one place, eventually something can go wrong.

I carry 2, 16GB memory sticks with me at all times but also have multiple drives on all my machines. Redundancy is your friend.

I have multiple drives in my computer, it is very handy for backing up large files as fast as possible. However I use external USB storage for long term storage this is only powered up when needed for this which safeguards it from corruption and wear and tear.

I had a computer power supply failure one time and apart from corrupting my C drive it also did the same to an external HDD which powered up on start with the computer.So now my main back up is given a better chance of not failing although any thing is possible but it gives me better odds.

Backups are a sore point with me, largely because I am such
a procrastinator about setting up a system for myself. Let
me rant about some observations and worries.

There are many different backup schedules that can be taken.
Odd/Even, Hourly-Daily-Weekly, Full or Incremental, etc.

If your data is truly long-term archival in nature, and not
just so you don't lose a days work due to a disk failure,
you have to also ensure that you have the tools to RECOVER
your backup data.

If your data is on punched paper tape, Hollerith Cards,
8" floppy disks, or zipdisk, or DECtape, etc, you may
find it hard to find a drive to read it with.

If your documents are stored in a form that only
Visicalc or WordPerfect can read - another problem.

Was the data compressed? arc, zipped, rar'ed, tar'ed?
Do you have the unzipper?

Do you still have the codecs for all the music
you've saved? Do they run on your current processor?

Is any of the data password protected? Are you going to
remember that password 10 years from now? When you meet
an untimely demise, will your heirs or company be able to
access your data? Do you care?

Much to consider.

WOW, Thank you all for tons of great ideas and advice. I'll check out those softwares as well. Nobody mentioned a preferred brand for back ups. My friends say Western Digital is OK. Any suggestions?

WD seems to be pretty good.

i have been using a WD 160GB for a couple of years, no problem technically within the drive. However, the file system came as FAT32, i did not bother at that time. Recently, when i tried to transfer a BlueRay movie of 6 GB, it refused. An expert then told me that the file system has to be NTFS or something. Just a caution.

And yes, the mini-USB socket in the device has developed a slight loose contact after thousands of plug in operations. Not a problem though.

i also have a Seagate 250GB, no problem with that either.

Wow... seems like everything, soups to nuts, has been discussed here... except ONE. I have done virtually ALL the things listed within the thread, both for customers, and personally.

Here's what I have finally settled in on, and it hasn't been discussed to date.

On my computer (laptop) I run Windows 2008 R2, with Hyper-V role enabled. This is the only role that the HOST is repsonsible for.

Then I configure a Virtual Machine that will become my everyday use. This can be literally ANY OS known. There is even a converter utility that will capture your existing OS and turn it into a VM for FREE. (Star Converter btw).

So what does this have to do with backups..? A Hyper-V OS is a single, self-contained file. You determine how much memory to allocate to each VM. You can back each of your Hyper-V machines to any media, but most importantly... it will fit on your 16G USB.

In the event that your host goes TU, reinstall Server2008 R2 on another machine... or backup drive in my case... enable Hyper-V role... and you are up and running in no time. Another superior aspect of this solution, if your are about to do something considered RISKY, you can snapshot your VM and if things go poorly, go back to your snapshot... no harm, no foul.

In almost every scenario, my very large clients are fleeing to Virtual technology in droves... and there isn't enough room here to discuss ALL the potential.

From a personal perspective, it has given me the peace of mind I need... and I cannot go back. Hyper-V is FREE, but you must have OS licenses for each VM you create, unless it happens to be an open-source variety.

I think I gotta stop here before I get too verbose... plus I'm only half way through my first cup of JOE. I would love to field questions though.

No questions, just a comment.

There are vendors out there who won't support their applications being run on a VM. I've run into several, especially those that run on top of an SQL database. Know your apps and know your vendors. And don't put everything on VM on a single computer. One hardware failure can make for a long day... and night... and day... trying to restart everything.

Hooker

Yep... the caveats certainly apply. Every piece of software our solution runs uses SQL Server as the DB du jour.

ALL of our solutions, which range from shop floor visualization, historian, to MES and ERP are supported. This includes clustering SQL Servers, Terminal Servers configured in VM's... even our cloud based scenarios are running on VM's.

The lack of support stems from mainly lack of testing to validate, but to the OP... I can back up what amounts to an entire rack of servers in 7 files, put them on a USB drive and recover from a complete server rack meltdown in less than 8 hours (most of which would be file transfers and installing a new HOST and Failover machine)

It's obvious you've done your homework.

I've known too many who try to cut too many corners and end up paying the price.

Hooker

I have found that by reducing moving parts, you have already began increasing reliability.

Just make sure you "remove" the device in OS before you physically unplug it. This is the #1 cause of fail USB stick. #2 is losing it.

You can also invest in a USB portable drive which use a HD. They can use 2" notebook drive or 3.5" regular drive. This way you can have 2 copies of your backup.

Google backup software and you'll find tons of them. Some can be get for free. Like other said Windows come with msbackup. You can also use SyncToy which is also free from MS.

Lots of good ideas and suggestions - so won't repeat anything. Just wanted to add about off-site storage for your backups. I have a friend with whom I swap backups. He has mine, and I have his - no charge. The chances of both houses burning down or being burglarized is fairly slim. And if you don't 'trust' your friend (or relative), just password protect the disk.

I use a USB External WD 1TB and love it. No problems. I have used several other smaller USB External WD Drives and never had a problem with any of them. Never required any software or drivers or anything else just plug and play.