Using a USB thumb drive for backups?
in [Mac Systems]
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From: Fred Moore on 19 Dec 2009 11:02 In article <181220091645482874%nospam(a)nospam.invalid>, nospam <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: > > no Care to back your opinions up with facts? A Google search supports everything Tim and I said.
From: nospam on 19 Dec 2009 11:44 In article <jollyroger-657BA0.09542819122009(a)news.individual.net>, Jolly Roger <jollyroger(a)pobox.com> wrote: > USB bus-powered enclosures have a design flaw: the power supplied by the > USB bus is barely enough for todays faster, more power-hungry drives. actually, recent drives use less power than older drives. usb is sufficient for normal operation, but not enough to spin it up. > To make matters worse, at certain times, the power delivered by USB ports > can fluctuate. only if the host is defective. > When a hard drive does not receive enough power during a > write, unpredictable things may occur, including data corruption on the > drive. Laptops are especially prone to USB bus power fluctuations. no, they're prone to not being overspeced. desktop computers have a much higher power budget and can easily overspec the usb ports. all usb hosts are required to supply 500ma, and most drives need about 1a to spin up the drive, but can run fine once spinning on 500ma. since usb hard drives are common, some computers provide more than required 500ma. > I have experienced data corruption several times with a USB bus-powered > enclosure connected to my MacBook Pro used for Time Machine backups. I > can tell you from experience that finding out your Time Machine backup > is corrupt when you most need it is not a pleasant experience. I refuse > to use a USB bus-powered enclosure anymore. For me it's Firewire-only, > and no USB unless absolutely necessary - and then only with an external > power source for backups. that could be due to any number of things. i had a time machine archive with a desktop drive get corrupted. time machine is not all that reliable.
From: nospam on 19 Dec 2009 11:46 In article <fmoore-239A0D.11021219122009(a)feeder.eternal-september.org>, Fred Moore <fmoore(a)gcfn.org> wrote: > Care to back your opinions up with facts? A Google search supports > everything Tim and I said. cites? memory circuits don't spark and nothing is vaporized.
From: JF Mezei on 19 Dec 2009 12:05 I missed the start of th thread. Is the user's machine connected to a netork ? Are there any servers (mac or otherwise) on the netowrk ? If so, you could setup either appleshare or NFS automounts on the users machine, and have time machine automatically run in the backgound to copy data over the net to an NFS or appleshare store.
From: isw on 19 Dec 2009 13:20
In article <tph-7E4F37.23571618122009(a)localhost>, Tom Harrington <tph(a)pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote: > In article <isw-C0CD34.21281918122009@[216.168.3.50]>, > isw <isw(a)witzend.com> wrote: > > > It's on the Mac of a barely-capable user who works with critical > > (financial) data (she understands the finances; just not the computer), > > and so absolutely cannot be trusted to do any backing up in a reliable > > fashion. The backup app launches at login, and runs continuously, waking > > up once a week to copy the folders I told it to copy. > > Sounds like a candidate for Dropbox, <http://www.dropbox.com/>. > > Have her put the files in the Dropbox folder, and the software will > silently mirror it to a Dropbox account (and optionally to other > computers) whenever it changes. She doesn't need to "do" backups, > they'll just happen, and if/when disaster strikes the files are easily > recoverable. backuplist+ works without intervention (once I set it up); I'm just looking for the best option for external storage. I'm leaning heavily towards a 2 or 4 Gig USB Thumbdrive at this time. Isaac |