What is the best medium for temporary file storage?

[Guest]

I am currently saving my Word document on the hard disk. My only removable
medium is a CD-Writer. Should I purchase a floppy drive for document backup?
Is there some other medium I could use for backup?

 

[Charles Kenyon]

CD-R is an excellent backup medium.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
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[Jay Freedman]

I agree. Just a couple of additional points:

If you study your CD-writing software, you should find out how to write
"track-at-a-time" without finalizing the disk. That will let you continue
writing other files to the same disk later, so you don't have to waste a
whole CD for one file and you don't have to wait until you're ready to write
a lot of files at once.

As an medium for quick but temporary backup, a 64MB or 128MB USB key (aka
"thumb drive") works well. You just plug it in, write to it (it's almost as
fast as a hard drive), and unplug it.

Floppies are pretty much worthless any more: too small, and too prone to go
bad.

In any case, NEVER open a Word document directly from any removable media or
save from Word directly to removable media. It's an invitation to corrupted
documents. Always work only on the hard drive, and copy to/from other media.

 

[Stan Brown]

I am currently saving my Word document on the hard disk. My only removable
medium is a CD-Writer. Should I purchase a floppy drive for document backup?
Is there some other medium I could use for backup?

A USB hard drive might be a good choice, since you can then easily
take the document to many other computers.

A 128 MB drive is quite inexpensive and would be more than adequate.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
"My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
"The waters? What waters? We're in the desert."
"I was misinformed."

 

[Stan Brown]

A USB hard drive might be a good choice, since you can then easily ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
take the document to many other computers.

A 128 MB drive is quite inexpensive and would be more than adequate.

Sorry, I meant a USB _flash_ drive, one of the little sticks such as
a Sandisk.

They're very light weight and are compatible with computers after Win
98 with no need to install drivers. And they're very much faster than
CD.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
"My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
"The waters? What waters? We're in the desert."
"I was misinformed."