SSD?

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2022-03-05 at 14:30 -0600, Jim Byrnes wrote:
> Can an external USB SSD drive be permanently attached to a computer 
> without  causing it any harm? The reason I ask is I want to automate 
> back ups to it.

The short answer from Colin is "yes", the longer answer from Ralf is a
very appropriate warning. You may find the bulleted list in this
article of interest also:

https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=359

Having a second copy of stuff in locally-accessible (or network-
accessible) storage covers you for some kinds of problems, especially
human error where you do something silly to the original. But local
copies, including network-accessible copies in the same physical
location as the computer, are going to suffer the same fate as the
computer if it gets stolen, burned, flooded or fried. Even if off-site, 
network-accessible copies are just as vulnerable to malware (and human
error) as the computer itself.

So do yourself a favour - buy three (or four or five or ten) external
drives, and cycle your backups onto them. Store at least one
(preferably more) off-site - a friendly neighbour, a family member in
the same town, a bank deposit box if you have one. When one of the
drives fills up, archive it and buy a new one. Or just clear the least-
recently-used disk and use that.

If you can, use backup software that does versioning. This is because
if you get hit by ransomware (or some important file gets corrupted
some other way), you may not realise it for quite some time. In that
time, you may have taken several backups. If you have cycled through
all your backup disks, and are NOT versioning, then your backups will
be useless. Versioning does use more disk space on the backups though.

BTW depending on how much stuff you need to backup (most people and
businesses back up FAR too much data "just in case") you may not need
large disks, you may be able to use USB sticks or whatever. The key
principle is use several and cycle through them.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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