Memory Stick

[Carlnorwich]

I have bought a memory stick which is 4GB. Rather than transfer all my documents, photos etc from my old PC onto my new PC obviously I can just store them on the memory stick as I don't need to access them all the time.

I was going to buy an external hard drive to store all these, but now I can use the stick instead.

How come the stick costs £15 and a hard drive will cost me £70 ish. Aren't they doing the same job in effect? Or am I missing something here?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Spark123]

A hard drive is usually many times bigger than a memory stick.
Memory sticks are fairly reliable but wouldn't be my only choice of backup medium as they can and do fail.
If you have 4gb of files then if you have a DVD writer you can write them to DVD. DVDs probably won't last forever either - I have one of the early CDs which I can clearly see the ink has run.

 

[Carlnorwich]

Thanks for your advice - excellent.

 

[dave.m]

Flash drives are designed purely for Governent employees to put top secret info on and pop out for a pint and lose the ruddy thing.
Just think how often you cannot find a pen in the house when you want to take a telephone message.
Sound familiar? Same thing.

I have about half a dozen of them and my daughter keeps nicking them to change the pictures on her digi-picture frame. I don't mind because they stay plugged into it and out of the way.

Do as Sparky says and get yourself an external hard drive. They are a darn sight more reliable, harder to misplace, cheaper and hold a damned sight more than pocket flash drives.

dave

 

[mattylad]

Hard drives are also more prone to damage it they are dropped etc.
You can put a flash drive through the washing machine, dry it out & it is likely it will still work

 

[kjacko]

Flash drives certainly have their uses, quick and practical.
But my 32gb one went boobs up and i lost an awful lot of data.
Whenever one of our laptops bites the dust for whatever reason, i just buy a self-powered usb external caddy and put it in. Thus giving me the backup i need in small sized case (about the size of an iphone).

 

[worto03]

I use a flash drive for backups, it doesn't really bother me that it may fail because it's a backup so to loose the data my HDD in my PC would have to fail as well as my memory stick at the same time.

they are a very cheap backup solution now that you can get 16gb ones for £15 (slow ones but if space is your main concern not speed then thats fine)

worto.

P.S. now that I've written this just watch my HDD & memory stick fail at the same time tonight

 

[kjacko]

P.S. now that I've written this just watch my HDD & memory stick fail at the same time tonight

Lol, its called karma dude.....and irony, all in one neat little bundle!

 

[foxhole]

You could have two for £15.
http://new.ukdvdr.co.uk/product.php...itle=Integral+Courier+4GB+USB2.0+Flash+Drive+

 

[mattylad]

Hard drives are also more prone to damage it they are dropped etc.
You can put a flash drive through the washing machine, dry it out & it is likely it will still work

Done that, using it still

Flash drives contain only a few relatively cheap IC's whereas a hard drive will contain moving parts and it costs more to manufacture them.

Myself I buy cheap external drive cases & use old IDE hard drives, if I want a permanent store that I do not want to lose then I'll make 2 DVDs, one as a working copy & one for archival.

Flash drives are extremely useful, but they are prone to failure.

My dad always used to want to put his hotel accounts on a floppy disk rather than use the hard drive in case the hard drive failed.
He did not seem to understand that the floppy disk was more prone to failure than the HDD.
The same theory goes with flash drives too, so if you are getting a new PC and all your stuff fits on a 4gb flash disk, then by all means use that top transfer your stuff to, but also copy them all to the new PC too.
2 copies can be better than one, disk access will be a lot quicker too.

THen for archival use a DVD or 2.

 

[empip]

Quality must be considered for artchiving / backing up.

How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media

About Taiyo Yuden Co.

Taiyo Yuden FAQ

-p-

 

[EddieM]

DVDs probably won't last forever either - I have one of the early CDs which I can clearly see the ink has run.

Most people "burn" information onto CD's rather than write on them in ink