Backups

[Derek Broughton]

Björn Seifert wrote:

>> > Depending on how often you backup, because flash drives have a limited
>> > number of write cycles.
>>
>> Yeah, but isn't that usually figured in terms of thousands (or tens of
>> thousands)?  Which makes it considerably more reusable than a CD-RW!
>>
>> I'd think that a flash drive would tend to make an excellent backup
>> medium, since backup is - with best practice - a low frequency task.
> 
> And if you use a backup with diffs like Matthew said in the now called
> "Backup part 2"-thread, there won't be much sectors rewritten every
> time you backup because you keep the old versions and only add things
> that changed since the last backup.

I'm not sure whether it really matters how much of the device you write (as
it would with an optical medium) or whether it's just the total number of
times you write anywhere on the device, but you can still expect a flash
device used for daily backup to last past the point of obsolescence
(especially since they seem to be outdated by the time they're sold).
-- 
derek