On 2024-02-27 20:11, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
On 2/27/24 10:29, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2024-02-27 17:34, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
On 2/27/24 03:30, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2024-02-27 05:49, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
Also, I have no issue myself with USB thumb drives. Indeed, I've got a 256GB one permanently plugged into the back of my desktop. I use it for daily backups of important things, like my ssh private keys to get into remote servers.
Thumb drives (sticks) fail eventually. That technology has a limited number of writes. How long they will last is an unknown. There is no SMART, there is no wear levelling.
I understand, but I've been using mine for more than 10-years, running rsync's to it from a daily cron job. It's storing 186GB right now in an XFS filesystem.
But you have a point, maybe I should get a new one and retire the old one just in case. I think the old one is even USB2.
Why don't you get an SSD of a similar size? Prices are quite reasonable.
They even make them in nvme form factor (maybe they are nvme inside, dunno):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Firecuda-Gaming-External-Solid/dp/B0839T2V2...
I've got nvme, ssd, and multiple spinners inside my desktop. My use-case for this is a small device I can plug into the back of the chassis to back up important stuff should the desktop crash. It's not a full backup, but just enough to get me quickly started on another computer if necessary. I ran into this problem once when I couldn't easily access my ssh private keys. It stays plugged in 24/7 and is out of the way. No muss nor fuss.
I can get a 256GB USB 3.2 name-brand thumb drive for less than $20 on Amazon. Indeed, I've got a new'ish 256-GB thumb drive right here in my drawer that I was using to store music files for Pochahontas. I think I'll just use that for backups instead. I've another one for tunes in the car. The existing backup drive is rather old. but it's still working! I just took a look at it and I started using it on Dec 17, 2014.
I just don't trust thumb drives for anything that does frequent writes. And there is no way to know how much is too much. They don't support SMART. They can work for a long time, and then one day they don't. No warning. I'd hate that on a backup. Yes, I had thumb drives die on me. One died early because I did the mistake of using dd on it with a small chunk size. It did live for a year or two more, then died "too soon". Another one died because I had Office open and work on files on it. Then, most thumb drives are very slow write devices. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.5 x86_64 at Telcontar)