It depends on how you're going to be using different drives, but for
backups, I'd trust a conventional hard drive over a thumb drive. I'd
suggest researching something like this on Google before trusting your
backups to a faulty understanding, such as the fact that thumb drives
never fail. I'd also do some of my own research before just trusting a
friend or what someone says on the list. You never know how they jumped
to their conclusion or how technology might have changed since they came
to that decision.

For free back ups over the internet, how much space are we talking
about? I think you get 2G for free with DropBox, and you can get that up
to 8G without paying for anything. Ubuntu One also gives you 5G for free
to start off with. I'm sure there are other options our there as well,
and of course there are a lot of options if you're willing to pay a
little bit.

As far as security is concerned, you need to look into the security and
privacy information for each service you sign up with, but typically,
these services are more secure than whatever you're doing to secure your
data on your own hard drive or backup media.

On 29/10/11 15:09, Harry Brown wrote:
> Hi all,
> Well folks, for 5 years now, I've been telling people to back up their
> files on a thumb drive, because of the fact that hard drives wear out.
> Well, someone called in to the Kim Komando show, and she had all her
> files, such as word documents, audio files, etc., on a thumb drive, and
> it wore out.  She clicked on the drive, and nothing was there.
> So, obviously, thumb drives are not the place to back up to.
> So, here's where I need your help.
> Kim told her to not backup on a thumb drive any more, but instead,
> backup files on the internet.
> Now I know she wants people to use carbonite to back up things on, but
> that's not a free service.
> Does anyone know of a place on the internet where I can store files for
> free?
> I want free, not because I'm not willing to pay, but because I would
> think any place that charges for backing up files, makes you pay online,
> and I won't do that, because I don't trust the internet for doing
> financial transactions on.
> Harry
> 
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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
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