'Thumb' Drives as Back-Up Solutions

Hank Vogel learned several lessons after Hurricane Wilma.

Two weeks without electricity persuaded him to install a permanent generator for his business. And the mere thought of losing computer data made him realize that his current backup solution -- copying computer files daily from one PC hard drive to another, and every week copying to removable tapes -- was time-consuming and insufficient in the event of a real catastrophe.

"It takes more than 30 minutes a day and an hour a week for the tape backup. That's just too long," said Vogel, president and owner of State-Line Firestopping, a Pompano Beach, FL building fireproofing company.

Vogel's plan: USB 2.0 flash drives.

Once the domain of tape, Zip, portable hard drives, CD-Roms or other large-capacity media, planned backup now can be performed with USB flash drives. These compact storage devices plug into the USB port on any computer. Often called "thumb drives," they're recognized like any memory drive by Windows Explorer. Now, they're becoming a solution for recurring planned backup. Products like the PNY Technologies Attaché provides four gigabytes of capacity for around $100.

Flash drives are essentially circuit boards in a plastic shell. (With no moving parts -- fans, motors, disk drives or bearings -- to wear out, flash drives are durable, can last for years, and be rewritten to near-countless times on a Mac or later versions of Windows.

"I've run mine through the wash three times," said Dean Delserro, PNY's USB storage product manager.

If compressed and automated with software like HandyBackUp.net, even a one-gigabyte drive can handle almost twice that capacity of data volumes, said Neil Fishman, president and technical director with 911 PC Service.com, a Pompano Beach, FL computer consulting firm. In working with State-Line to implement the new backup and disaster recovery protocol, Fishman will back up QuickBooks data, as well as Excel, Word and proprietary database software to a USB drive.

A concern inherent to portable memory is the increased chance of loss or theft of the drive, especially with planned replacement regimens. The strategy calls for removing most recent backup from the office premises to protect against theft or damage. The SanDisk Cruzer USB drive includes up to one gigabyte of memory, accessible only through built-in biometric security. To access stored data or passwords, users first must swipe their finger across the biometric pad. Also, any data stored to a device should be encrypted to ensure inaccessibility by unauthorized users.

Vogel's wife, Candy, has used flash drives to ferry the company's QuickBooks files home nights and weekends. The "plug and go" simplicity enticed Vogel to pursue similar ease for his company's backup solution.

Jeff Zbar, the ChiefHomeOfficer.com, is a speaker, writer and expert on alternative officing. He is the author of Teleworking & Telecommuting: Strategies for Remote Workers and Their Managers (Made E-Z Products, 2002); Safe@Home: Seven Keys to Home Office Security (FirstPublish 2001) and Your Profitable Home Business (on CD-ROM from Made E-Z Products). Visit his Web site to subscribe to Home Office Success Stories, his free electronic magazine on home business and teleworking.