What's the Best Way to Back Up Your Data Using a Thumb Drive?

[babywings76]

What method do you use to make your back-ups?

 

[KellyTheChef]

I back them up to a thumb drive...

 

[BethCooks4U]

I back up to my hard drive and then once a month I back up to a thumb drive.

Then every so often my DH backs my computer up to the desktop.

 

[pamperedlinda]

I back-up to a cd & a thumb drive and I keep my last 5 back-ups.....I'm a little paranoid about losing my info, can ya tell?

 

[babywings76]

I don't know what a thumb drive is. How much room does the program take up on a CD? How big should it be? Do you use a Rewritable (sp?) one?

 

[crystalscookingnow]

I just got an external hard drive for this. It had software with it that does my backups weekly.

 

[jwpamp]

Back ups take very little space. Yes, you can use a CD-RW, but a flash drive is my weapon of choice.

Not quite as paranoid as Linda, I keep 2, in case one gets corrupted. I also would suggest keeping one in a VERY safe place (a firesafe box, etc).

Thumb drives and flash drives are the same. Unless you have thousands of shows, you will be fine with a 1gb flash drive ($9.99 on sale). The program puts it into a "zip" file which makes it smaller that it would normally be -- kind of like a "mini-me".

One very important thing with Flash Drives, though, make sure that you close all the programs and if you are using Windows, click on the "safely remove hardware" icon on the bottom taskbar before removing it from your computer. This will ensure that everything is closed and you are not pulling it out in the middle of saving something (which will make it unusable).

 

[BethCooks4U]

Back ups take very little space. Yes, you can use a CD-RW, but a flash drive is my weapon of choice.

Not quite as paranoid as Linda, I keep 2, in case one gets corrupted. I also would suggest keeping one in a VERY safe place (a firesafe box, etc).

Thumb drives and flash drives are the same. Unless you have thousands of shows, you will be fine with a 1gb flash drive ($9.99 on sale). The program puts it into a "zip" file which makes it smaller that it would normally be -- kind of like a "mini-me".

One very important thing with Flash Drives, though, make sure that you close all the programs and if you are using Windows, click on the "safely remove hardware" icon on the bottom taskbar before removing it from your computer. This will ensure that everything is closed and you are not pulling it out in the middle of saving something (which will make it unusable).

I've never done that. Where is that icon?? I don't see it - don't know where to look.

 

[DebbieJ]

I use an external hard drive.

 

[jwpamp]

I've never done that. Where is that icon?? I don't see it - don't know where to look.

If you have it, you should see it pop up on the lower right hand corner of the screen in the blue taskbar (bottom of the screen). If you don't see one, make sure that you have completed all work and have closed the Flash Drive's window before removing it.

 

[quiverfull7]

During the last week of May, we had a power surge that hit my power supply and mother board. I am SO thankful that I had a current back up of my PC Stuff. However, I did not have backups of my WORD files and had to pay dearly to get those retrieved. BACK UP ... OFTEN... sometimes when you are busy in PP3 do it daily. I cannot urge you stronly enough. And Beth... I have multiple backups as well since I've had a flash drive and cd's get corrupted. It's worth the peace of mind to do a few different types. I know now never to trust my hard drive as a source of backup. Since you all mentioned this... I'm backing up right now!

 

[letscook04]

I back up on a flash drive once a week.

 

[vwpamperedchef]

I use a memory stick---not sure if thats the same as a thumb drive....LOL

 

[dannyzmom]

I back up to my C drive every day and onto my flash drive every few days. I also have an external harddrive that we back things up onto a few times a year. I need to get in the habit of backing up to that thing more frequently - I just haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

 

[Ann F]

I, too, use a thumb drive for P3. May I ask a really embarassing question? How does one back up Word without having to back up each individual doc or folder?

 

[jwpamp]

Hmmm....I have one LARGE folder call "Pampered Chef" in which there are MANY subfolders (probably 50 or so). When I back that up, I just back up the whole MAIN folder "Pampered Chef".

It's large, uses the whole 4gb Flash Drive, and I only do that once a month.

 

[sk8rgrrl99]

thumb drive = flash drive = usb drive = usb key = memory stick = usb memory stick
There are about a million names for them. It's a small device that plugs into the USB port on your computer (the rectangular port) and stores data.