San Disk Flash Drive for backing Up?

urk

Hi - would the following do for backing up as you would with an external hard drive?

San Disk Cruzer USB Flash Drive - you can get either an 8GB or 16GB. My laptop is a Dell latitude D610 and correct me if I'm wrong but hard drive is just 2GB. I'm new to backing up and want to do it cheaply as possible. I don't download lots of music/movies etc but need to get rid of an infection and the pc cleaniing thread says you need to back up before you do that. Would the above surfice?

Sorry if this should be in the backing up thread - I asked a question in the speed up a slow computer/viruses thread and as of yet no answer so thought this might be the way to go?? Apologies if its not.:o

With much thanks Urk

robmar0se

urk wrote: »

Hi - would the following do for backing up as you would with an external hard drive?

San Disk Cruzer USB Flash Drive - you can get either an 8GB or 16GB. My laptop is a Dell latitude D610 and correct me if I'm wrong but hard drive is just 2GB. I'm new to backing up and want to do it cheaply as possible. I don't download lots of music/movies etc but need to get rid of an infection and the pc cleaniing thread says you need to back up before you do that. Would the above surfice?

Sorry if this should be in the backing up thread - I asked a question in the speed up a slow computer/viruses thread and as of yet no answer so thought this might be the way to go?? Apologies if its not.:o

With much thanks Urk

The answer is probably yes - however I doubt that yr hdd is 2gb - most of the D610 were 80gb back in 2005 running Windows XP.

Usual stuff to back up other than the system itself, is : My Documents, Favorites, Address Book, and emails, and maybe anything else that you may have stored somewhere else.

You can buy a Cruzer 16gb for for much more than a tenner, eg Amazon

flashsnaps

Hi, I wouldn't use flash memory sticks for backup. The write speeds are terrible compared to external harddrives. So running backups will take hours.

Plus they're cheaply made and I wouldn't have much faith if my PCs harddrive died and I had a backup on a flash memory stick.

Just spend the extra money and get an external drive, its worth it. Put it this way..... What would happen if you lost all the data your backing up? If you wasn't bothered, then get the flash memory stick!

arriva

look here:

Verbatim 32 GB for £14.99

it's out of stock at the moment but if it comes back it seems one of the best deals.

fwor

Like flashsnaps, I wouldn't rely on flash memory for a backup - a conventional hard disk would IMO be more appropriate.

If you do decide to use a pendrive, make sure you test it first with something like h2testw or F3 beforehand, as both fake and faulty memory sectors will typically not generate any error message during a backup - your data will just vanish.

Figment

the 2GB you think is your hard drive will actually be the size of the installed memory. They are not the same. (Hard Drive = Cupboard Space, Memory = Work Space)

robmar0se

I would concur as permanent use of pen/flash drives for long term backup, but for temporary file transfers/ backing up, if I understanbd you correctly, while you resolve the malware problem should be okay.

Really two issues here (i) should you be backing up regularly? If it didn't matter if data was lost, then there is no point on spending precious £'s on external hdd storage. (ii) If indeed you just want temporary storage facility then a flashdrive is fine.

If you right click on the folders you want to save (then click on properties, then the general tab), this will tell you their size, add them up and you will be able to estimate what size you need.

closed

if the machine has a dvd writer, blank dvd's are about 15-20p each, and hold 4.7GB.

urk

Thanks all - very helpful post from everyone - will look out for the Verbatim and maybe just do the back up on dvds in the meantime. Urk

arriva

arriva wrote: »

look here:

Verbatim 32 GB for £14.99

it's out of stock at the moment but if it comes back it seems one of the best deals.

another one here: 7dayshop