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Thumb Drives - What Type Do You Use?
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Hi Suam! I have a passport. I think it's 500 GB. It wasn't too expensive and it's an external hard drive so I can partition with folders just like on my computer. I also backup everything to Google drive as well.
Hi Christina! I just checked those out on Amazon, and ooooh, those are nice! I put that on my wish list for sure! Thank you! I just need something to tide me over until then. Hugs!!
I have loads of these in different sizes, shapes and capacities. Plus there is an external hard drive which gets regular backups of everything.Because I use Linux as the operating system I have something of an advantage here. There are tools such as rsync which will back up only changed files and cron which will back up automatically at preset times.
A few words of wisdom though:
1) There is safety in many copies. You can never have too many backups.
2) Some copies must be offsite. One lives in my wife's car, another in a storage unit a couple of miles away.
3) Backing up to Google, SpiderOak or Dropbox is safe, but make sure you have a copy of the password off site.
4) Avoid keeping copies close together.
A little true story will illustrate 4. I've been in the computer business since the time of the moon landings, and sometimes I think I've seen it all. Years ago I was called to a bank in London on 2nd January. Before the New Year shutdown the operator had made three copies of the customer database on top-loader packs. These were the size of wedding cakes and had to be physically screwed into the drive to read them. Over the break a pipe had burst over the shelf and filled all three with water, ruining them.
Mercifully he had used a scratch disk when making the copies, and left it in the drive. This was on the other side of the room and had survived. Thank you God.
The basic rule of thumb:1) Try to use reliable storage. (Very cheap thumbs drives tend to die young.)
2) Always keep multiple copies. You can consider them really distinct, if they are in separate locations. (Don't lose your life's work if your house burns or is robbed.)
I personally use:
- Syncing tools. I have a copy on both my laptops (Europe), a copy in the US and a copy in Australia. "Eat dust asteroids! You may extinguish humanity and all readers, but won't one-hit destroy my works! :P"
- On server side I do incremental backups. So overwritten/deleted files still have previous versions at hand.
If you stick with pendrives:
1) Use multiple ones.
2) Bring at least some of them off location. (Office, family etc.)
3) Possibly encrypt them.
4) Spread your backups by time and not title. This way if one of them dies, you lose a point in time and not a complete work. (Limit the loss.)
Hi R! Thank you for the advice. Great story about the bank files!Hi Zoltan! Thanks for sharing you mastermind plan on how to spread out my work. I love it! Nope, they won't destroy you!
I've read the reviews on the pen drives I already have and they aren't good. People complain they stop working after a few months and some even complain that two out of five are dead right out of the box! Sad thing is, they seem to sell thousands of these things. : (
I've had pretty good results with SanDisk among others.
I stopped using thumb drives a while back, but SanDisk was usually my go-to. If possible, I would suggest moving from using just thumb drives as backup to doing things like e-mailing copies to yourself, or using a cloud service (One Drive or Google Drive are good choices).
Hi R! Thank you for the recommendation! Hugs!Hi Thomas! I'm embarrassed, but I will admit I don't know how to use One or Google Drive. I'm a bit tech-phobic. I like the idea of emailing copies! That's great, thank you! Hugs!!
Computer keys mine...they are USBs shaped like keys and they are sturdy.
Sam (Rescue Dog Mom & Writer) wrote: "Hi Thomas! I'm embarrassed, but I will admit I don't know how to use One or Google Drive. I'm a bit tech-phobic. I like the idea of emailing copies! That's great, thank you! Hugs!!"No need to be embarrassed. I was leery of technology for the longest time. I kept it on a thumb drive specifically because I didn't want my work to somehow get stolen. But with cloud storage, you're as secure as your password and their servers. Google Drive is easy enough. Just sign up for Google in some way and go to the Google Drive section of the site. Easy and free.
To be honest though, I just create extra folders in my e-mail and drop the copies in there. It's faster and slightly more convenient because I use my e-mail far more than I get onto my cloud storage.
Mod
Samantha wrote: "Computer keys mine...they are USBs shaped like keys and they are sturdy."Ooh, I've never seen those. Cute! Hugs!
Thomas, I use Google Chrome, but I really like your idea about the emails and sub-folders. I can do that until I'm able to also get the device Christina mentioned. Thank you! Hugs!
Hi Mannie! Yup, my PC ate my homework... boo-hoo! Where's my baseball bat? GRRR!! Thanks so much for the hug! I just adore hugs! Hugs at at ya!!
OH! I forgot to tell you the rest of the story that led me to this question!Yes, my old laptop that I've angrily complained about and threatened with a Louisville slugger in the past got sick and ate pieces of my book. Luckily, I got a very nice used replacement from someone who didn't want it anymore (and doesn't want to talk about it and I don't even know if she's a GR member). The laptop is the same size I had with a smaller keyboard. My Dad gave me five 2 GB pen drives from when he worked at a flooring company. Since I'm working on 4 books, that leaves one for each book and one for all the other files on the computer I use for other things.
Sorry for not including this with the beginning. Ugh! Hugs!!
I was leery of the cloud for a long time too, but really, Google drive has made my life much easier. Especially during events like this because I might grab a cover while I'm on my phone, but then have to input it in the computer, so instead of having g to email to myself or manually connect the devices (oh I do not miss syncing my palm devices!), it's all right there.
Hmmm... maybe if I get brave, I'll test it sometime. Thanks Christina! I did put that device you mentioned on my wish list for later! Thanks! Hugs!!
Thomas wrote: "I kept it on a thumb drive specifically because I didn't want my work to somehow get stolen"On Linux you can use LUKS to encrypt thumb drives and external hard disks, or just about anything else for that matter. I don't know if there is an equivalent for windows.
Am I the only one who emails herself her book every day? I only use the flash drives every few weeks and external hard drive a couple times a year.
Thomas wrote: "I stopped using thumb drives a while back, but SanDisk was usually my go-to. If possible, I would suggest moving from using just thumb drives as backup to doing things like e-mailing copies to your..."I like this idea of emailing copies, but what if my email gets hacked? My family is a little paranoid after some cyber stalking and what looked like piracy of one of my books. I mean, look at the news. How safe is it to put the whole thing out there in the cloud?
Robert wrote: "I like this idea of emailing copies, but what if my email gets hacked? My family is a little paranoid after some cyber stalking and what looked like piracy of one of my books. I mean, look at the news. How safe is it to put the whole thing out there in the cloud? "A fair question. The best defense is to have a strong password. While I can't recommend a password manager program because I haven't picked one yet, they exist to help create unique random passwords, and keep them in a "locker" so that you have to only remember the password into the program. The random passwords they create are designed to be very difficult to brute force.
As for how safe is it to put it out in the cloud, again it comes down to how strong your password is. When it comes to piracy, that's a completely different topic (and we have a thread on that here https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ).
I use Scrivener so I can switch between my PC and my iPad. That means my main document is saved on my Dropbox, and Scrivener saves a backup on my pc every time I open or close the program. I also email each chapter to my mom (she's hooked) as I finish it. Occasionally I'll save it to my sea turtle thumb drive, too. :) maybe I should be more concerned about security and piracy, but I'm not sure what pirates would do with half an unfinished manuscript of the 5th book in a series. I mean, if my books were ultra popular and my fans were scrambling for any sliver of an update on the series, I might be more careful, but as of now, that's certainly not the case!
All great thoughts and and good techniques. One word about thumb drives, get a small one that doesn't stick out. A bigger drive can sustain fatal mechanical damage if you leave it in the machine before stuffing it in a back-pack (don't ask me why I know). With a small USB drive, be sure you put a lanyard on it... the little boogers have a way of disappearing. And yeah, use offsite storage for your stuff as well. Redundancy is your friend...
Hi Missy! Nice plan, sending it in pieces. Love the sea turtle thumb drive. How cute! Hugs!!Hi C.B. Matson! I never leave a thumb drive in my laptop in case one of the dogs comes by and sends it flying! LOL! Hugs!!
Denae wrote: "How safe is it to put the whole thing out there in the cloud?"The quick answer is that if the cloud drive uses good public key encryption, and the password is not guessable, very secure.
Make sure you have several copies of the password to your cloud storage as if it goes, everything goes.
I ask because my piece of crud computer ate random sections of my young adult paranormal fantasy novel. I backed up every day onto a slim plastic stick drive with a plastic cap (looks like a lighter) with not much memory. Since I'm working on 4 books, I had to delete older backup files to save new ones. I won't be doing that in the future. In fact, I intend to have a separate memory drive for each book. Plus I want something durable for the inevitability of revisions. ; )