USB Flash Drives

[The Jack]

Just wondering if anyone out there can help me. We've recently installed some new computers at our store and now our end of day backup is done to USB Flash Drive (or portable hard drive, probably not as convenient to carry back and forth). Overall, the backup time has been halved with the new server, but when it gets to the point of writing to the UFD, it seems to slow down considerably. Our IT guy who flew out from WA to install the new system says the total file its backing up is about 200MB, so he recommends a 4GB UFD to give it a few weeks worth before it rewrites over old news. At the moment we're using an Amicroe brand UFD and it probably takes 3 or 4 minutes to write to it. Some of the Sandisk and Kingston brand UFD's I've researched have a quoted write speed of 20MB/s or thereabouts. I'm assuming that means mega-bytes per second not mega-bits per second? If it was 20 mega-bytes per second, by my maths it should only take 10 seconds to write a 200 mega-byte file. Is there any other brand or solution that anyone can suggest? 3 or 4 minutes at the end of the day if not necessary is not good! Especially on a Friday!

[Psyber]

Have you installed any driver specific to that drive that may have been supplied with it?
Apart from that, I ran into the issue you describe with a particular "own brand" allegedly USB2 flash drive - it ran at USB1 speeds.
I've found Apacer and Corsair flash drives reliable.

[Dissident]

To be honest, any USB device would be give or take around 5% difference from the best and worst.
Can't go faster than a USB2 pot anyway.


Oh, and backing up to USB drives FTL!

Unreliable, but at least you're backing up.

[Psyber]

To be honest, any USB device would be give or take around 5% difference from the best and worst.
Can't go faster than a USB2 pot anyway.

Oh, and backing up to USB drives FTL!

Unreliable, but at least you're backing up.

A lot of people say that, Diss, but I'd been backing up business data to a Corsair 4 GB USB drive since May 2005 and never had a problem.
However, I also kept a copy of it on a secondary HDD in the business computer, and restored it from the Corsair to a HDD on another machine at home.
That way if the one at work fritzed itself I had a spare already set up at home ready to run, and extra copies on the secondary HDD and the USB.
I used a 2GB Apacer before that - neither ever failed me, and both are still working.

I have an medico acquaintance who always diligently backed up on an optical drive but when he needed it he found his later disks were coasters.
A pharmacist I knew found his tapes were blank in a similar situation.
Yes, they should both have checked them occasionally... But it appears all back up methods have their risks.

[Dissident]

I treat USB drives like Floppy disks.
Be prepared if/when they screw up.

[Psyber]

I treat USB drives like Floppy disks.
Be prepared if/when they screw up.

Fair enough, that's why I kept the 3 copies of everything for the last week, and 2 copies of the last few months.
I was prepared, perhaps that why I didn't need them....

[dedja]

I treat USB drives like Floppy disks.
Be prepared if/when they screw up.

I'm with Diss on this one ...

The Jack, use at worst an external usb HDD which is USB powered. They're small and easy to carry around and a lot more reliable than a USB stick.

It all comes down to how much you value your data in the end and whether you can do a complete restore if required.

Also some other questions:

- where is the USB key stored? if on site, then what happens if the building goes up in flames?
- 200Mb backup ... that's not a lot. Is that just 'user' data and can you restore a PC from scratch?
- has a restore been tested. If so, will a restore test be done regularly?
- relying on a single backup device is just asking for trouble ... make sure that backups are on at least 2 different media

This IT stuff sucks, eh?