FlashDrives in general.. Re: quality, reliibility, data retention, and price
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Windows 2000 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by DonaldJ
(18 messages posted)
In Canada, Wall Mart is selling a one-gig flash drive for 4 bucks... Get 3... I bet
they are 2-bucks, or less, in the States... But if I were to visit the States they
would shoot me faster than I could say "oops"...
I keep a one-gig flash drive plugged in my tower, as my ongoing backup... If the
PC every got hit by a bug, it wouldn't get to the flash-d.. and all I've got to do
is pull it out.. and my treasures are safe... But I don't fully trust a flash drive
as my only backup, because they can be destroyed by a drop... Every once in a while
I erase a CD, and copy all my treasures from the flash-d... It's a good time for
you to make your backups, just in case shitt hits your fan... But I get a lot less
dirty fans since I installed this hard wired router... The hd hasn't had one bug
nor glitch since I added the router... I bet someone was messin' with me, because
I had a lot of probs before the router......
Maybe access to the flash drive should be password protected... How do I do that?..
I can continue pulling it out, but I would prefer leaving it installed...
After I've processed a post in a blog, immediately I drop a copy into the flash drive..
which is also holding my pix, my notes, and all my downloaded softwares.. and still
has 50-megs of free-space...
The only serious downside in these flash drives, is that they can't take a hard knock,
like a drop on a hard floor... It could destroy it in a flash... I killed one by
dropping it out of my shirt pocket... Lucky it was only experimental... I lost nothing
but the ten bucks it cost... Now it gives me the chance to open one up to take a
little look-see inside one of them thar flash drives...
The plan is to keep two flash drives plugged into the tower... One for an ongoing
Notes backup, and the other for pix editing...
In the pix-editing flash drive, I'll include all the pix handling softwares too...
In ten minutes I'm on my way to Wall Mart for a couple more one gig cheapies... The
stores open in five...
Should the PC ever get hack virus hit, I lose nothing but the few hours it takes
to format C and reload a fresh OS and peripherals... But it's the darn tweaking that
takes a Lot of time... I'm wondering if I could run a program that follows my OS
tweaking, and records it in a tool, and will run it in a new fresh OS load..? I'd
call that, "PC-Angel"...
Seems they just might already have it...
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=pc+ ... arch&meta=
__________________
What else can we do with flash drives..? besides use them as backups, and to smash-open
up a wrecked one to see what's inside..?
Is there an MP3 that can take a flash drive..? This way you could simply plug-in
a new music set...
..And probably music recordings could be sold as tiny MP3 plug-in cards when CD's
go obsolete off the market like records and tapes did...
(And I glances back at my huge ceiling tall records shelf/recording desk, with its
thousands of rare 45's and huge plastic albums.. and that stack of ten prime record
players, and seven tape decks, and the 6 top of the line stereo amplifiers, all from
garage sales for just pennies... How am I gonna get all those songs into this MP3..?
Oyie! It's gonna be a desperate time-consuming sterrretch!... I used to work in electronics
repair shops... It'll be easy to get a good system up and running.. and I've saved
record cartridges and styluses for thirty years.. I have hundreds... but to replace
my favorite stylus is gonna be a toughie... The buggers want $400 for one diamond
stylus to fit this top of the line gold cartridge, which picks up essentially Everything
in a record.. probably the best one then world ever made... Too bad the "needle"
got broke in a move... Maybe I could make one from bits..? How hard could that be..?
Too bad laser doesn't play old records.. or does it..?
I like the 2-gigs, and maybe a 10-gig for when I get all my music to the hd... but
for now 1-gigs are enough...
Seems the cheap flash drives are easily breakable, just from a little drop.. but
this search came up with something totally unexpected...
http://www.consumersearch.com/usb-flash-drives
_______________
Seems there are even "flash drive pirates", selling substandard knockoff flash drives,
claiming their junk to be large gig storage units when they are really only x-meg
storage units, and made of junk...
_______________
I read some stuff about "flash drive data retention"... Seems the better "nand systems"
will maintain data up to ten years.. oh yay... So it seems you can't drop those CD's
yet... I'm not about to trust flash drives yet... I'll use them, but make CD backups
just before I delete things from the HD permanently...
I never thought of "data retention" in CD's...
Seems eventually they fail too...
I wonder what storage system lasts for at least 30-years..?
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/ ... ention.htm
Oops!.. So it would seem that if you have data you don't want to lose, that you must
keep duplicate backups, and refresh them every ten years or less...
http://data-backup-software-review.topt ... media.html
Another oops.. Seems there isn't any reliable electronic storage yet.. so if you
want to make your data last a very long time, all you've really got, is to scratch
and paint it onto cave walls...
|
Responses to this message:
|
|
