USB Flash Drives as a PC Backup Solution

Flash drives (sometimes called "thumb drives" or "pen drives") are a type of SSD (Solid-State Drive) that has become wildly popular in the last few years Typically designed to be attached to a key chain or neck strap and commonly available is capacities as high as 64 GB as of this writing, glory be, flash drives are a portable, relatively inexpensive, and easy-to-use backup medium.

Using a Flash Drive for PC Data Backup

Flash drives are best suited for data-only backup, and can be used without any specialized software. Simply plug the drive into computer (they're plug-and-play in all recent Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems), and copy the files to be backed up to the drive. Then unmount it, unplug it, and put it in your pocket.

Because flash drives are recognized as hard drives, they also can be used with most available backup software, enabling advanced backup options such as incremental or differential backup to be employed. Some flash drives also include software (most often on the drive itself) to encrypt the drive's contents, making it difficult or impossible for unauthorized parties to view it if the drive is lost (as many of them are, every single day).

It's also possible, though not quite as easy, to create a bootable hard drive image to a flash drive. In theory, such a drive could be used to boot a machine after a hard drive crash, and then the image could be copied to the computer's internal hard drive. The Backup Nut says "in theory" because he's never actually done it; but others claim to have successfully done so.

Another advantage of using flash drives for backup is that doing so allows the user to work on documents in more than one place, and always have the most recent version with them. Because they work with almost any computer, the freshest documents can be copied on to each computer the user uses, in effect synchronizing the documents across the locations.

Amazon.com Widgets

Perils of Flash Drive Backup

Their small size, high capacity, portability, and reasonable prices make flash drives an intriguing possibility for backup. But be warned: They're not a panacea. Flash drives have several disadvantages as backup media, including:

Cost. Although relatively inexpensive, good-quality flash drives are still more expensive per unit of storage than other backup methods, such as external hard drives or online backup.
Flash Drives are Easy to Lose or Steal. Portability is both an advantage and a disadvantage of flash drives. They get lost easily. Ask any geek. We verily lose a multitude of them every year.
Flash Drives Don't Last Forever. Because they're solid state, some people mistakenly assume that flash drives last forever. They don't. They actually have a shorter MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) than hard drives, although the better-quality ones tend to last longer.
Flash drives are slower than hard drives. Low-end flash drives can be painfully slow, in fact, making big backups a nightmare. The better-quality ones, however, aren't horrible.
El-Cheapo Flash Drives are Everywhere. And the old adage "You get what you pay for" is as true for flash drives as for anything else. Cheap flash drives tend to be slow, flimsy, and unreliable.

Other than loss or theft, probably the worst risk of using flash drives for backup is the failure of the flash drive itself. Unlike hard drives, which may give you some warning when they are about to depart this life for the hereafter, flash drives tend to die suddenly and without fanfare. You should never rely on a flash drive as your sole backup solution.

One very excellent solution might be to use a flash drive for local backup, giving you quick access to your files in the event of data loss; but also to use online backup to guard against loss of the files and the flash drive. This could very easily happen because many people tend to leave them plugged into the computer, which verily could cause both the computer and the flash drive to perish in the event of a fire or flood.

So in summary, The Backup Nut exhorts you to consider flash drives and merely another medium for data storage, rather than a complete backup solution. They can, however, be part of a comprehensive backup plan.