Memory Stick for Backup?

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Is a USB memory stick fine for backup of Windows 7 before installing Windows 10?

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yes, if it is a good quality flash drive & not too old, as they wear out/die with age

 

have a good 1 cheers

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The importance of a good quality USB stick cannot be overstated. That said, unfortunately, in my experience, finding a quality stick is like playing the lottery. Even buying 2 drives from the same manufacturer that are the same model yield 2 different results in speed and longevity. It also feels like the older drives lasted longer than the newer ones.

I’m still using a 12 year old Kingston 1GB Data Traveler. Half of the newer drives I bought over the last few years have had about a 50% mortality rate. They run hot and slow, freezing up and becoming unresponsive, often write protecting themselves, then flat out die.

The best newer 3.0 drives I’ve had are Lexar, when they were made by Micron, before the name got bought out by a Chinese firm. Those things were fast, the higher capacities creeping up on SSD write and read speeds in a 3.0 port. They also weren’t cheap, and unfortunately, out of production.

I have since stopped buying USB drives. I now use 120-128GB SSD’s with a 3.0 USB to SATA adapter. They are light years faster than any USB drive and the superior quality isn’t even a contest. GB. for GB. they are very cost competitive, even pricing in the adapter, which you only need to buy once. Just stick with a quality brand.

They obviously aren’t as convenient as a USB stick, but for back up at home, for me, it’s a non issue.

You mention you want to use it as a backup before upgrading. I don’t know the specifics of your goal or your system, maybe use this as reason to upgrade to an SSD and just swap drives instead.

For that matter, if you don’t want to or can’t do a hard drive swap, you could also use a 2.5 inch HDD instead of an SSD with the USB to SATA adapter. For backups I would probably trust those more than an SSD for long term storage. The bigger 3.5 HDD’s require an additional power source when using an adapter.

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I have a Kingston Data Traveler 64GB, I don’t know how long I have had it, but it still works a beaut

I have 4 Samsung Bar Plus flash drives & I think they are the best 

 

have a good 1 cheers

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I have a 1TB USB HDD. Cheap insurance IMO.

cheers, Paul

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Microfix

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I have a DAS running special software that looks after my 60 TB HDD’s.  It checks the HDD’s for failure & it does software RAID, so it doubles all my data and if a HDD does fail (as they do), I can take out that crook HDD & put another one and it builds that HDD.  The software also does leveling between all my 8 HDD’s.  The programmer is also very active in his forums.  This the URL if you or anyone else wants to check it out.

https://stablebit.com/

 

have a good 1 cheers

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That’s just software in Windows with a duplication option. Just as easy and cheaper to add a second disk and use one of the many sync utilities to duplicate the data.

cheers, Paul

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Using an external USB/eSata/network HDD rather than a USB flash drive is my preferred option.
USB Flash drives are more prone to failure whatever make/brand IMO
The long lasting reliability of external HDD’s speaks volumes in decades of use as a backup facility from experience.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Paul T wrote:

That’s just software in Windows with a duplication option. Just as easy and cheaper to add a second disk and use one of the many sync utilities to duplicate the data.

cheers, Paul

Did you check out the software?

 

What utilities do you recommend, don’t say use many utilities without giving examples or URL’s

have a good 1 cheers

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I read the blurb on the developers site expecting to see some sort of NAS, but it is a monitoring and copy utility for Windows. I thought that you were running something like FreeNAS or XigmaNAS given you have 60TB of disk.

Sorry if I seemed dismissive.

cheers, Paul

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it’s cool

grouse bit of software ain’t it?

have a good weekend

have a good 1 cheers

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Why don’t you run one of the NAS products I mentioned? They have full file checksums with recovery and scheduled data validation, not to mention snapshots and monitoring.

cheers, Paul

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[the_Unforgiven]

because I have already bought the Stablebit software nearly 3 years ago

It has:-

Hierarchical Pooling, Per Folder Balancing, Remote Control, Email Notifications, Multiple Pool Support, Control File Placement and Organization, StableBit Scanner Integration, Easily Add and Remove Disks of Any Size at Any Time, no limit to HDD size, No Need to Reformat the Disks to Add Them to the Pool, at size HDD that can be added, Pooled Disks Can Continue to Store Non-Pooled Data, Pooled Data is Stored in Standard NTFS Files, Easy and Flexible File Duplication, Efficient File Balancing, Advanced File System, Data Recovery Options, Automatic Updating, Dashboard Integration and Supports Multiple Languages.  Not to mention you can get plugins for SSD Optimizer, Ordered File Placement and Disk Space Equalizer.

The fore mentioned Stablebit scanner scans all your HDD’s continuously, it also Monitors the on-disk SMART health parameters at all times and it also has damage assessment & it attempts to fix your damaged files.  Plus it has various forms of notifications, Remote Control, Enhanced Cloud Integration, 15 themes, file system check, disk controls, disk settings, Fast Disk Surface Scanner, Advanced Scan Throttling, Overheat Protection, File System Aware Scanner, file recovery, Direct I/O, Enhanced S.M.A.R.T., it can either be fully automatic or you can have manual control, Overall Status, Detailed Information and automatic Updates are digitally signed to prevent tampering and ensure authenticity.

Why don’t you give them a try?  You can try the full versions for 30 days, that goes for both the Stablebit Scanner & the Stablebit Drivepool.

 

have a good 1 cheers

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by the_Unforgiven.

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Paul T

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