Looking for a small hard drive for backup, do they exist?

[M4cruiser]

.. and by "small" I mean much less than the normal 2.5 inch things.

I've had so much trouble with USB sticks, they are not reliable. Whereas the 2.5 inch SSD (1Tb) works fine. It just won't fit in my pocket or attach to my keyring.

So there must be a small SSD with about 500Mb?
.

[thebraketester]

Yes. All over Amazon. Samsung ones are decent

[Hanslow]

Something NVMe 2230 based ?

[14]

I’ve bought one these in October
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0C9WHSZZN/ref... no problems so far.

[M4cruiser]

Thank you for the replies. A few options there I wasn't aware of.

Whilst on the subject, can anyone provide some insight (to my non-technical brain) on why SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. - I mean that when I copy onto a USB it randomly skips subfolders, and if I do any "moving" of data on the USB it loses the lot.

[Peter911]

M4cruiser said:

Thank you for the replies. A few options there I wasn't aware of.

Whilst on the subject, can anyone provide some insight (to my non-technical brain) on why SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. - I mean that when I copy onto a USB it randomly skips subfolders, and if I do any "moving" of data on the USB it loses the lot.

Are you using the Fujitsu one?

[.:ian:.]

M4cruiser said:

Thank you for the replies. A few options there I wasn't aware of.

Whilst on the subject, can anyone provide some insight (to my non-technical brain) on why SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. - I mean that when I copy onto a USB it randomly skips subfolders, and if I do any "moving" of data on the USB it loses the lot.

Unless you are buying 1tb USB sticks from Temu or Wish for 50p, that shouldn't happen!

(These are usually 32gb but fiddled with to pretend they are 1tb or some silly size!)

[essayer]

PNY Elite Portable ones are small (60x35mm) - I picked up a 480GB one for £30 last year

[sgrimshaw]

Never had an issue with a Sandisk USB Flash Drive and they're just thrown in bags / attached to key rings / etc

I personally find the ones with both USB A and C connectors very useful. Eg:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0859NR7KY?psc=1&r...

They do some tiny ones too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083ZS4HYD?psc=1&r...

[Lucas Ayde]

M4cruiser said:

Thank you for the replies. A few options there I wasn't aware of.

Whilst on the subject, can anyone provide some insight (to my non-technical brain) on why SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. - I mean that when I copy onto a USB it randomly skips subfolders, and if I do any "moving" of data on the USB it loses the lot.

I don't know about the skipping of subfolders etc (maybe some sort of permissions issue with the exfat filesystem that they tend to use?) but USB (and SD) flash storage is generally less reliable than SSD.

USB sticks use relatively cheap flash whereas SSDs will use higher quality cell based storage. This means that sticks will generally have fewer write cycles to begin with.

Plus SSDs will generally have a decent memory controller on-board to try to wear-level the cells usage at a low level, whereas USB sticks (and SD cards) won't do much to try to stop the same portitions of memory being continuously re-written .. which will cause more wear ... which will lead to earlier failure.

And as part of the wear levelling, SSDs usually reserve some space from the user to help even out the usage. Memory sticks/SD cards generally don't.

Bottom line is, memory sticks and SD cards are cheap and convenient but don't trust them for regular use where they are continuously getting written to.

[The_Nugget]

14 said:

I’ve bought one these in October
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0C9WHSZZN/ref... no problems so far.

Me too! Seems great to me.

[M4cruiser]

.:ian:. said:

M4cruiser said:

Thank you for the replies. A few options there I wasn't aware of.

Whilst on the subject, can anyone provide some insight (to my non-technical brain) on why SSDs are more reliable than USB sticks. - I mean that when I copy onto a USB it randomly skips subfolders, and if I do any "moving" of data on the USB it loses the lot.

Unless you are buying 1tb USB sticks from Temu or Wish for 50p, that shouldn't happen!

(These are usually 32gb but fiddled with to pretend they are 1tb or some silly size!)

Hi
I bought a Lenovo for £18, which I thought would be good enough quality, after trying a rubbish one (unbranded) at £4.99.
I use the same command(s) as I use on a larger external SSD, and the subfolders all work on that!

[QJumper]

Depending on what you want to back up, for a small amount, under a few GB, I'd be inclined to dispense with a physical hard drive, and use the free versions of something like Dropbox, PCloud or Google Drive.

[M4cruiser]

This is the odd issue I'm getting when copying to a USB stick, I don't get this when copying to an SSD:-

[sgrimshaw]

M4cruiser said:

This is the odd issue I'm getting when copying to a USB stick ..........

Have you tried any tests on the flash drive?

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-...

[CheesecakeRunner]

I use Crucial X6 drives. They’re tiny, 5cmx6cm.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT1000X6SSD9-X6-P...

[dudleybloke]

M.2 ssd's are pretty cheap, reliable and fast, I've got one as a portable drive and it's been perfect for over 2 years of fairly heavy use.
A USB 3.0 enclosure should be about £10 too.

[mmm-five]

M4cruiser said:

This is the odd issue I'm getting when copying to a USB stick, I don't get this when copying to an SSD:-

Maybe it's an issue with the source file, not the target drive?

Can you duplicate that file and copy the duplicate?

[M4cruiser]

mmm-five said:

M4cruiser said:

This is the odd issue I'm getting when copying to a USB stick, I don't get this when copying to an SSD:-

Maybe it's an issue with the source file, not the target drive?

Can you duplicate that file and copy the duplicate?

No, the source file is ok, I can open it, read it, and/or copy it to an external SSD with no problems, it's just the USB stick (flashdrive) that complains.

[M4cruiser]

sgrimshaw said:

M4cruiser said:

This is the odd issue I'm getting when copying to a USB stick ..........

Have you tried any tests on the flash drive?

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-...

That's interesting .. I shall try one of those, thank you for the link.