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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In
computer news this week – 02/13/2007 |
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Now an
exciting backup media even better than Flash drives Probably
the most exciting technology to emerge in the pc world these past few years
have been USB Flash Drive storage devices. This new
technology in file transfer and backup uses what is known as USB flash
drives, tiny little memory plug-in drives about the size of a stick of
gum that plug right into one of your USB ports, and you use windows
explorer to copy files to it at high speed. Then you just pop it out of your
computer, plug it into another computer and copy files from the flash drive
to the other computer. Or you give it to someone to use on their home
computer, or maybe you mail or ship it to someone. I bought
a SanDisk 1 Gig flash drive at Costco a year ago for $
80. You plug it into any pc using Windows, But the
limitation of flash drives is that they’re 2 gigabyte, but you probably have
at least 20 times that much data on your computer that needs to be backed up. Western
Digital has introduced their Passport
usb hard disk, which is a plug and play device for windows – meaning you
just plug it into your computer into one of the available usb drive slots,
and it automatically configures itself as a huge mass storage device. It’s an
actual hard disk – not a flash drive – but it’s very fast – 5400 rpm. You can
now use windows explorer to drag and drop files to it, or to send mass tagged
folders to it. It also comes with its own synchronization software, which
means you can set it up to automatically copy any files on your hard disk
that have changed since your last backup. And it includes encryption software
in the event you want to store you data in a format that noone
else could read. The
passport drive is quite small about 4X6” and less than an inch thick, weighs
just a few ounces, and comes with its own carrying case and usb cable. I’d
used a client’s one which was 110 Gb and I just bought one at costco which was 160 Gb, for about $ 125. It’s ultra
portable and ultra easy to use. The most
important thing is that your data is stored on it in native windows format –
which means you can plug it into any other computer and access your files. In
older backup technologies. Including Dos, Windows, Iomega and many others,
your data was stored on a mass storage device in a proprietary unusable
format. This meant in the event of a crash, you’d have to have a copy of the
original software you used to do the backup, and the actual backup itself in
order to restore your data. You’d have to reinstall whatever backup software
you used, and then restore your data. With the
Passport drive storing your data in its normal format, you don’t have any of
these problems. You can plug your passport into another computer, and be up
and running immediately. So now
for ultra peace of mind, you can have a couple flash drives for quick data
backup and transfer, and a Passport drive to back up your whole computer. And
if you’re of the younger generation, think of all the mp3 files and pictures
and movies you can have online !! For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2007 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa
99223-1522
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