Flash Drive Backup Reliability

[cranheim]

This may not be the best place for this topic, but here goes. Because of the
problems I have been having using CD-RWs & CD-Rs for backing up my files, I
began looking at the Verbatim USB Flash drives. I am looking for any
comments or experiences relative to the reliability of using these for
backup. I have been trying the 8 GB drive for this purpose, and it seems to
work OK in the limited time I have played with it. Is there a problem with
writing and deleting files many times, like a C drive? Will they hold the
data over extended time? I ask these questions because I do not know how the
data is actually stored on this type of media. Thanks for any information
you may have for me. Charles Ranheim

 

[Shenan Stanley]

This may not be the best place for this topic, but here goes.
Because of the problems I have been having using CD-RWs & CD-Rs for
backing up my files, I began looking at the Verbatim USB Flash
drives. I am looking for any comments or experiences relative to
the reliability of using these for backup. I have been trying the 8
GB drive for this purpose, and it seems to work OK in the limited
time I have played with it. Is there a problem with writing and
deleting files many times, like a C drive? Will they hold the data
over extended time? I ask these questions because I do not know how
the data is actually stored on this type of media. Thanks for any
information you may have for me.

Get this instead...

Seagate Replica
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/replica/

Backs up the entire system (as long as you have less than 500GB of stuff)
and lets you restore that from scratch if things go wrong or allows you to
recover single files. The 500GB version (on sale for $109.99 U.S. right
now) lets you do this with multiple computers. It might be a bit more than
an 8GB USB thumb/stick drive - but it will likely cover more bases and give
you better end results.

 

[thanatoid]

This may not be the best place for this topic, but here
goes. Because of the problems I have been having using
CD-RWs & CD-Rs for backing up my files, I began looking at
the Verbatim USB Flash drives.

<SNIP>

Did you use Verbatim blanks? No wonder. Only Memorex is worse.
(I do not consider stuff like Princo "recordable media" at all.)

Kodak, Fuji and TDK are the only ones I would ever use, and
that's because I can't get Taiyo Yuden where I live - nor Fuji,
many of which are made by TY, for that matter, so I have been
forced to only use TDK and no complaints so far. Kodak stopped
making recordable media, and although a few years ago I DID
manage to find a place that had about a dozen ten-packs, and
bought them all, they're gone... They were probably the best
ones aside from TY.

(I was horrified to see TDK was bought by Imation, who also
"make"/sell Memorex - even though when they were 3M their
floppies were excellent... I never used any 3M/Imation CD's,
only Quantegy (Ampex) CD-R's and they are still perfect.

USB sticks are about as reliable as floppies - I DO have
floppies which are about 20 years old and work just fine, but I
would not trust them for archival backups. (A book (remember
books?) fits on a floppy, before you say how useless they are -
admittedly, the complete Jackson "Lord of the Rings" with extra
footage will not.)

If you use top quality blank discs and burn with good software -
not the shit that comes with XP and later - at slow speeds, and
handle/store your media with proper care, you should not have
ANY problems. As discussed to death in xp.general just a few
days ago.


--
There are only two classifications of disk drives: Broken drives
and those that will break later.
- Chuck Armstrong (This one I think, http://www.cleanreg.com/,
not the ball player. But who knows. I can't remember where I got
the quote - but it's true!)

 

[cranheim]

Get this instead...

Seagate Replica
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/replica/

Backs up the entire system (as long as you have less than 500GB of stuff)
and lets you restore that from scratch if things go wrong or allows you to
recover single files. The 500GB version (on sale for $109.99 U.S. right
now) lets you do this with multiple computers. It might be a bit more
than an 8GB USB thumb/stick drive - but it will likely cover more bases
and give you better end results.

Thanks for your reply. I do have a Seagate one TB external drive I use to
back up my entire system using Acronis. In addition to this, I wanted to
store some word files, photos, PDF, and some other data type files that I
can keep in a safe or safe deposit box in a bank. If I had a fire in my
house, I would lose everything, including my external HD. Another thought
crossed my mind about my using Acronis for complete backup. When the data is
written to the external drive it is "Compressed" to save space. I know for a
fact that I can go into the external drive and copy and paste a word file
back to my c drive OK. Something must have decompressed the data in order
for me to do that. I have wondered if when I do the copy from the compressed
data on the external HD, Acronis (in my PC) somehow decompresses the data.
If this is what is happening, my next thought is what would happen if my
entire PC became unfixable, and I had to get a new PC. Would I be able to
extract my compressed data files to a new PC without Acronis being installed
in the new system? This is one reason why I would like to store some data
files on a media other than an external drive.
I know for a fact I can do a complete restore of my system after replacing
the HD in the PC using Acronis. I have done it. Charles Ranheim

 

[Bill in Co.]

Thanks for your reply. I do have a Seagate one TB external drive I use to
back up my entire system using Acronis. In addition to this, I wanted to
store some word files, photos, PDF, and some other data type files that I
can keep in a safe or safe deposit box in a bank. If I had a fire in my
house, I would lose everything, including my external HD. Another thought
crossed my mind about my using Acronis for complete backup. When the data
is
written to the external drive it is "Compressed" to save space. I know for
a
fact that I can go into the external drive and copy and paste a word file
back to my c drive OK. Something must have decompressed the data in order
for me to do that. I have wondered if when I do the copy from the
compressed
data on the external HD, Acronis (in my PC) somehow decompresses the data.
If this is what is happening, my next thought is what would happen if my
entire PC became unfixable, and I had to get a new PC. Would I be able to
extract my compressed data files to a new PC without Acronis being
installed
in the new system?

You would at least need Acronis on its own bootable CD to do this.
If you bought Acronis in the package, it already comes on a bootable CD,
otherwise you have to make one. If you don't have Acronis on a bootable CD
or the hard drive, I doubt if you could ever extract files out ot its .tib
backup image.

 

[smlunatick]

This may not be the best place for this topic, but here goes. Because of the
problems I have been having using CD-RWs & CD-Rs for backing up my files,I
began looking at the Verbatim USB Flash drives. I am looking for any
comments or experiences relative to the reliability of using these for
backup. I have been trying the 8 GB drive for this purpose, and it seems to
work OK in the limited time I have played with it. Is there a problem with
writing and deleting files many times, like a C drive? Will they hold the
data over extended time? I ask these questions because I do not know how the
data is actually stored on this type of media.  Thanks for any information
you may have for me.  Charles Ranheim

Flash drives are not reliable as a backup medium. I personally seen
one flash drive be erased by a static electricity discharge.

 

[Anna]

This may not be the best place for this topic, but here goes. Because of
the
problems I have been having using CD-RWs & CD-Rs for backing up my files,
I
began looking at the Verbatim USB Flash drives. I am looking for any
comments or experiences relative to the reliability of using these for
backup. I have been trying the 8 GB drive for this purpose, and it seems
to
work OK in the limited time I have played with it. Is there a problem with
writing and deleting files many times, like a C drive? Will they hold the
data over extended time? I ask these questions because I do not know how
the
data is actually stored on this type of media. Thanks for any information
you may have for me. Charles Ranheim

Flash drives are not reliable as a backup medium. I personally seen
one flash drive be erased by a static electricity discharge.


Charles:
"smulnatick" is essentially correct at least based upon our experience with
a wide variety of flash drives (although I can't say for certain whether
we've worked with or have particular knowledge of the Verbatim line of flash
drives).

What it comes down to - again, based upon our experience - is that if the
material you're backing up to your USB flash drive is important or crucial
to you in that you either could not suffer its loss or its loss would cause
you a fair amount of disappointment, and the material you're backing up to
the flash drive would represent your sole backup of that material...

Then ensure that you maintain multiple backups of that data - on CDs, DVDs,
another HDD, etc.

In our opinion under no circumstances should you totally rely on the flash
drive backup to retrieve your data in the event it comes to that. Under no
circumstances should the flash drive represent your only repository for
important or critical data.

While the flash drive is admittedly a handy device for storing data
on-the-fly we have found it to be a most unreliable device over the long
haul (or sometimes over the *short* haul!). We have worked with or had
experience with dozens of different makes/models of these devices and we've
yet to recommend a single one without reservations. We have found their rate
of failure to be nothing less than appalling. And time & time again we
encounter their erratic (not to mention puzzling) behavior as we come across
flash drives that will perform perfectly in one machine but not in another
one and we're simply unable to determine the cause of this mystery.

On the other hand, should the loss of the data you're storing on a flash
drive be of little or no consequence to you because the lost data can be
easily retrieved from another source, e.g., a downloaded program, then you
can feel comfortable storing such data on your flash drive.
Anna