USB Flash safer than SATA, IDE, etc?

[mlah384]

Are USB Flash drives safer than SATA, IDE, etc hard drives for storing info? I'm a web designer and was wondering if it would be safer to store a clients assets on a USB drive rather than a Hard drive? I also was wondering if USB Flash was safer than a CD/DVD disc since the disc can get scratched easier?

Thanks

 

[Elixer]

Well, safer in what way though? The Flash drive has no mechanical parts, so on one hand, it is more durable than a HD, it don't use dyes, so it is better than a CD/DVD in that regard, but, I have seen USB Flash drives fail as well, and the same goes for SSD devices.
No matter what, you still need backups with whatever storage device you have. It is best to have multiple backups.

 

[jimhsu]

In other words, the chance of a physical failure to a USB flash drive is much lower, but controller failures are still a huge unknown.

 

[RebateMonger]

Never keep your only copy of important data on a single disk/array/tape/flash drive etc. They all fail eventually and USB Flash, in particular, will do it with zero warning.

 

[Modelworks]

This may seem funny but I was talking with someone who does a lot of programming. Guess what he uses to keep a secondary backup ?
Paper .
He prints all his code and keeps it in a binder. If he ever needs to restore the code and the dvdr doesn't work he can scan back in the code in just a few minutes using a sheet fed scanner and OCR.
The tip he gave me is to pick a print font that is highly OCR compatible and it is almost 100% error free on scanning back in.

 

[Blain]

Another fly in the ointment is that USB & HDs can be infected... CD-R disk can't

 

[jimhsu]

500K data on a page: http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/