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USB [2.0 or 3.0] Image Backups?

BonzaiDuck

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
And so it came to pass -- my home network was an "evolution." I never thoroughly planned an overall backup strategy. WHS gave me a good start, though.

Now I've implemented server image backups on a 60GB SSD. Just to steer the discussion: I've separated the backup of the server's "shared folders" from the WHS OS itself.

The longevity of the SSD, however, is uncertain. So I'm looking at alternatives, planning to adopt -- and pay for one that works the best.

I've never seen any cases here at the forums where someone was using a USB flash drive for this same sort of low-volume image backup. But it is now possible to purchase these thumb drives in a 128GB size.

I can imagine keeping a couple of these in operation for a single backup scenario. Given the way my server OS schedules the "server backups," I can foresee leaving the USB target plugged in. From time to time, I could clone one USB drive to a twin. Or (maybe) I could just swap them weekly.

Since one could plan an image restoration process that depends on another USB flash drive instead of a CD "restoration disc," it would seem that this is feasible.

Has anyone else tried it? Am I barking up the wrong tree?
 
Grab a 80GB for OS and couple OS. gl

usb 2.0 is slow. , Grab a thumb stick with 3.0 or something like that.
 
Not sure I'm following you.

Yes, "longevity of the SSD" is uncertain. As with anything electrical or mechanical.

But I certainly wouldn't think a USB flash drive should be expected to have greater longevity than an SSD. In my experience, they are relatively fragile and cheaply made and more prone to simply drop dead.

And they are not a huge bargain at the 128 GB size compared to an SSD. $50 and up compared to $65 and up for an SSD.

Or am I misunderstanding you?

Maybe you are talking about the recovery boot media rather than the image storage location? I use CDs as the recovery boot media for any image restoration, but I think USB flash drives can be used for that purpose--although again I don't know that I'd trust them more than a burned CD. I remake my recovery CDs periodically anyway.
 
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For what it would cost for a 128GB USB drive, just go get a 500GB or 1TB portable USB3.0 HDD (not an external drive... a portable... I made that mistake once! ) and call it a day.
 
Charlie98 said:
For what it would cost for a 128GB USB drive, just go get a 500GB or 1TB portable USB3.0 HDD (not an external drive... a portable... I made that mistake once! ) and call it a day.
Click to expand...

Here's the problem I'd like to circumvent. I'd like to back up the OS volume on a regular and incremental basis. WHS Windows backup seems to give me an exclusively "daily" option. If I remove the backup disk, the OS can't report the backup status for the most recent and earlier backups. I currently use a small SSD (60GB) to do that.

So using a thumb drive to do the same thing -- it would depend on the longevity I could expect from it.

I've got plenty of external HDDs, but if one of them were deployed for the OS-boot-volume backups, I wouldn't want to leave it attached and running all the time.
 
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