Storage forum: Are memory cards a good media to back up your data on?

....I use an external hard drive but I cannot backup my iTunes material. IIs this necessary or should I put my trust in Apple? Ugh.

The music you buy from Itunes can easily be changed over to a regular mp3 file. There is probably even an easier way then this: 1. but music in itunes to an audio cd, 2. take that cd and put it back into your same computer, and 3. rip the audio files into mp3 using windows media player.

Given I haven't bought anything from itunes in a while, i use amazon.com, but that is another story.

I have several gmail.com accounts that i sent all important pics to ,then if my house burns .i can still retreave them...

Surely this also begs the question to what is actually the ultimate storage medium? Hard drives fail (eventually). CD and DVD discs deteriorate and become unreadable. Anything that is solid-state wears out, so what is the best course of action for archiving data? I have an absurd number of external hard drives (spread over three machines on my small network), backing up around 150 gigs of data and music. Not saying how many, as it's pretty laughable and totally OTT (or is it?) but only recently, two failed in fairly rapid succession and they weren't exactly long in the tooth. What is the commercial solution? What do the big boys use? How can we ensure that our data is still intact in years to come? Seems to me that it's just one continuous slog to keep copying data over to new drives or another medium to ensure continuity.

Hi Cecil,

You raise a good question regarding the reliability of SDHC memory cards. I read somewhere once that you should treat the data on your computer as if it didn't exist. In other words, anything worth backing up should be backed up on a regular basis. It sounds like you've been quite diligent in this area and congratulations are in order!!!

The truth is that any type of media is susceptible to failure. Hard drives, DVDs, Tape, ZIP, Flash and yes, SDHC cards. The good news is that as you mentioned in your question, the cost of storage media of all kinds has come down to a level that we can and should backup our data on a regular basis.

The point I want to make here is this. If your data is worth backing up to begin with, you should back it up twice. I would never trust just one source to backup all of my data. So I would recommend that you backup your data once with the tools available through Windows Backup. This will allow you to create a Restore Disk and backup your entire system. In addition to this, I would keep a small partition on my hard drive to backup data only (pictures, music, documents, etc...). Finally, I would use an external backup for the same data on a separate hard drive, flash drive, DVD's, etc....

When choosing the media I'd use for an external backup, I personally don't think I'd use a card. I've seen too many cards go POOF!!! Once the card's been shorted, exposed to the elements, or many other potential threats out there, if the data is corrupted it's gone. You might consider Blu-Ray disks if you're using a desktop or laptop that can write to them. But I believe an external hard drive is the safest and easiest to manage among all of the possibilities.

SDHC cards are really handy for moving large amounts of data from one place to another (like from a camera to a computer hard drive) but as an archival tool I think I'd sway away from it.

Hope this helps

Yes, all backup media is volatile to some extent.

Some backup methods come close to being reliable on such a long-term basis that they are pretty nearly permanently safe. Properly stored Blu-Ray disks - BD-R - probably have the greatest longevity, but regular DVDs -- DVD + or - R -- ought to outlast most of our lifetimes. Do NOT use BD-RW or DVD-RW -- they are MUCH more volatile.

My own solution, however, is to use an external drive for my "dead" backup -- the one from which I expect relative permanence and expect to use only in a REAL disaster -- which is an external drive with large-enough capacity to hold all my data. The applications and O/S I can restore from distribution. For my consistent, totally up-to-date-on-a-daily-basis backup, I use a second large-capacity internal drive that is neither my primary system disk (an SSD) or my usual data and programs disk. I use this same large-capacity drive for large data files that do not need backing up -- DVD rips and whatnot that I already have fully "backed-up" on their original media. The odds of me having to go to the data on the external drive is very, VERY small, as it would require a simultaneous failure of all of my internal drives. I have NEVER experienced such a catastrophic failure on any computer that contained more than one disk drive.

On a laptop that's a possibility -- it could happen, and most have only a single drive in any event -- with all the abuse they occasionally are expected to endure. On my desktop that just sits there pretty much immobile all day with an SSD and two HDDs it's EXTREMELY unlikely to have so many different pieces of hardware fail simultaneously, so unlikely that I only backup my very most precious and irreplaceable documents and pictures to removable media.

I feel that it is more important to take steps to ensure that you will never need to resort to data backups. It is impossible to absolutely eliminate the risk of equipment failure, but you can significantly minimize the potential for such failures by only connecting your computer to genuinely reliable electrical power. The most common cause of any hardware failure, including disk drives, is a sudden power cutoff or surge. If you run off a good, fairly high-powered (at least 1,200 VA) uninterruptible power supply and plug your CPU into one of the battery-backup outlets it provides, this will go a long way toward protecting the health of your disk drives and all the rest of the components on your computer as well.

The first question is: How much stuff do you have to back up? 2nd question: Is that amount of stuff growing rapidly or just a little bit now & then?

You mentioned a 16GB size SDHC card as an example. If all your stuff will fit on one of those cards with room to spare then buy a couple of those cards, make duplicate backups and store one of them somewhere away from home - at a relative's house or safe deposit box, etc. A couple of USB flashdrives would probably work just as well.

If you have a lot of stuff to back up or if the amount is growing quickly then you're still better off to to buy, say, a couple of brand new standard hard drives and make duplicate backups on those. We recently purchased a hard drive dock which holds 2 regular or laptop size hard drives. They just stand in a slot and the dock has a USB cable to plug into your computer. Dead simple to use and it cost about $30 from newegg. There's also some very good deals out there on 500GB and 1TB size external hard drives which would not need a dock.

I'm glad you had such good luck, but I have shied away from cards ever since I lost photos when a CF card in my Canon PowerShot suddenly failed. The photo store where I bought a new one (in 2008) said this was common. Now, I always back up my daily photos to my laptop, send especially good ones to the cloud, and when I have time put them on a CD or DVD.

I've been afraid to use Carbonite or the like. I've always been concerned about privacy.

I have an external that back ups automatically, but since it's in the same room as the laptop, I'd like to back up my files and store them somewhere else. It would be primarily photos and a few documents. Would a flash drive (what brand? type?) stored in a safe deposit box be a reasonable option?

I'll get a flash drive to put in Mom's SDB and update it a few times a year. It's mostly photos and some important documents like images of birth certificates and such.

Any recommendations for flash drives or are the major brands OK?

Two things on Carbonite -

I too wonder about security on Carbonite, their tech support seemed awfully casual about the whole thing.
They apparently give the option of NOT storing your password on their servers, but that process seems a bit involved, and of course if you forget it you are SOL.

Another thing I have notice that is significant, is that if you have backed up EFS files, they don't download on other computers. I have called them on this, but never got a definitive or satisfactory answer as to the solution.

So, although the EFS files appear to have been backed up, their system refuses to offer them back when you need them.

If SDHC memory cards work for you then that's fine. You can test that in the same computer you backed up from, or some other computer.

However, although you haven't mentioned it, I would just say that having only one backup may not be enough.

Consider this; your files from your computer are backed up to an SDHC card, then suddenly the computer's hard drive fails catastrophically and all the originals are lost. Where is your backup now? It is not the SDHC card because, suddenly, that card becomes the original.

The regular poster's in these forums and elsewhere always say, Backup, Backup, Backup. That is, backup your files at least 3 times onto different media. Then, if the original storage fails you still have proper backups.

Mark

SD cards are very reliable for the backup of data. If it is the same with the much more capacious SDHC cards, I cannot say yet. However, in both instances it is advisable to use a card reader, not just stick them direct in the computer slot. This will reduce wear and tear, thus the possibility of failure. (Same goes for cards in cameras - do not remove them, use a cradle/cable to download your shots.)

The number of write cycles will be limited in the end, so the less frequently the card is used, the better. USB flash drives mentioned by others, are completely unsuitable for serious backups due to high failure rate. They are copy-and-transport media only. Having a 4 GB stick gone suddenly blank and unrecoverable would have a salutary effect on anyone entertaining the idea.

Cards are very small, which has obvious advantages as well as disadvantages. They need to be kept in their cases and/or holders. External HDDs beat them on capacity, but they also will fail over time. Whether a USB HDD will last longer than an SDHC is open to question. I should always double on the backup with high-quality DVDs or other means.

Hi Cecil

Congratulations for being an individual who realizes that back-ups are an essential aspect of computing. I'm glad to hear that you've had good luck using Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) cards as a backup medium. However, there are several reasons why you may want to re-think your choice....

Price Per GB
The average price per GB of an SDHC from a reputable manufacturer (i.e. SanDisk, Transcend and Lexar) is about $2.25 for 8GB. The price goes down a bit with the higher capacity cards (i.e. more GB's) but still doesn't break the $1.00 mark. By contrast a Lacie 500GB portable HD is $0.23 per GB.

Keeping Cards in Order
To perform a system restore the data needs to be re-written in the same order as it was transferred. Meaning you don't want to insert Card #2 before Card #1. By contrast with a 500GB HD keeping everything in order is not an issue.

Read/Write Speed
Determined by the Card Class being compatible with the Hardware which can vary by device and vise-versa. Meaning that if you are using SDHC cards designed (recommended for use) in a camera and then another recomended for a camcorder and still another recommended for a PS3 or XBox -- your read/write speeds will not be consistent which can be critical if data to be restored is split between cards of different classes --- it may not come back properly. By contrast a HD spins at 5400 or 7200 rpm consistently - for the most part - barring power fluctuations.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Every SD Card type has DRM embedded. You may never be affected by if you never try to backup protected media (i.e. downloaded movies, music or single use license material and/or programs. By contrast a HD has no embedded DRM.

Failure Rate
This one area where SD cards shine. At over 100,000 write/read cycles you'll probably never have to worry about that happening in your lifetime as a home PC user for back-ups versus that of a professional photographer using the same medium. By contrast HD's on average have a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rate of 1 million - 1.2 million hours.

In conclusion an HD for back-ups is just a better solution - be it portable or not. Price, continuity, read/write consistency and no DRM make them a better choice hands-down. Drop a SDHC card and you may step on it...ooops...too late. Not that you can't drop a HD---but if you did you probably won't step on it. Besides even if you did the chances of survival (for the HD) are greater than that of an SDHC card.

Learn more about SD cards at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital

Together Everyone Achieves More