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Avoid generic USB drives for backups?

GoodEnough

GoodEnough

Golden Member
Want to set up a Windows backup
I have an old 8GB and 16GB, so they won't be enough.
I will just buy a new flash drive.

What's the best value point?
64GB? 128GB? 256GB? 512GB?

Wow, I can get a
256GB for $19 !?!
128GB for $11

But, whoa, Sandisk 128GB is more like $45
Big premium for non-generic USA seller.

Avoid generics?
 
$19 for 256GB is either an insane deal on a clearance item, or a good chance for you learn about a shady side of the consumer electronics business. I'll guess the latter.

32GB and up all seem to be similar in price, these days.

$45 for 128GB is $.35/GB, which is about as low as you're going to find any quality flash device, today (not counting short-term sales).
 
For reliable backup, if it is important at all, flash (thumb) drives are not what I call a good choice. OK for a near term backup, but think beyond that. At least go multiple flash drives.
 
Staples has the Toshiba Canvio Connect 1TB external portable HDD in Silver for $54.99 right now on their web site.

If you want to backup, flash drives aren't the best. I would go with HDD. Flash drives are more for transferring data from point A to point B.
 
GoodEnough said:
Wow, I can get a
256GB for $19 !?!
128GB for $11

[...]

Big premium for non-generic USA seller.
Click to expand...
It's more a case of the low prices being too good to be true than there being a "big premium" for the name brands. With prices like those (Chinese sellers on Ebay?), not only do you have to worry about shoddy hardware, there's always a chance they're literally fraudulent. That is, they're really smaller drives with the firmware modded to report more space than is really available.

And as others have said, flash drives aren't the best idea for longer term storage in any event. I have a few USB sticks that have held up well for years, but unlike HDDs, when flash drives fail, and even name-brand ones do, they tend to do it suddenly without warning. At least HDDs usually give indications they're on their way out, giving you time to back up your backups.

As for alternatives, in addition to that $55 1TB drive VirtualLarry mentioned, I recently noticed an external WD 3TB drive for $93 on B&H Photo's site. Both are way cheaper per GB than even those possibly-fake flash drives.
 
Agree with everyone. Avoid large USB flash drives. The cheap ones are shady. The cheap ones that aren't shady in my experiences tend to be too slow for writing backups. They average between 5-15MB writes.

You are better off with external USB HDDs. A 2TB desktop is about $66 in the US, while the portable version is currently $85 from TigerDirect. I would honestly pay the extra $20 over a similarly sized USB flash drive to avoid the headaches. In fact, buy 2 USB HDDs for backups and rotate your backups between them. Best of luck.
 
256GB and 512GB flash drive for little money is almost always hacked for bigger capacity and its really just a 1-8GB flash drive.
 
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