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So, I use a USB stick for work (read/write/modify on a daily basis) and have done for years. I've toyed with saving things to "the cloud" and accessing my stuff that way but without it being a draggy-droppy "Windows Explorer" type interface find it less than convenient.
Anyway, I've recently got a "personal cloud" backup thing (WD My Cloud) which is great, and when I plug in a USB hard drive to my laptop it allows me to back that up but if I plug a USB stick in it doesn't, but I'd like it to.
Is there some sort of fundamental difference between a USB stick and a USB hard drive (it's just a 2.5 SATA inside a caddy) that stops the laptop recognising it as a viable drive to backup does anyone know?
Many thanks, sorry for the long post!
Not answering the main question but Google drive or Dropbox for drag drop and ease of use.
Not answering the main question but Google drive or Dropbox for drag drop and ease of use.
Can I launch a file from the interface, modify it and save it directly back to where I launched it from?
It's just a directory on your hard drive so yes.
On a work PC though?
[edit]On more than one as well, I'd use a variety of computers during the day.[/edit]
Depends on your work, it runs on 4 for meme, syncs between them all, though it all depends on what your work thinks.
Also Onedrive from Microsoft, works well for me on Windows 10.
To appear as a simple folder Dropbox requires a small client app to be installed, so might not be ideal for the OP's needs especially if he can't install stuff on a work PC.
I find it great though.
I'll ask them, cheers. In the meantime anyone else know about backing up a USB stick? 🙂
It's probably a restriction of the backup software rather than something inherently different about a USB stick. Maybe WD software only backs up WD drives?
Either way, I wouldn't bother with any of that, I'd just drag & drop files.
1 line of a robocopy script will copy your data from 1 usb drive to another.
See the example below, this will copy from E: to F: with a log of the backup on F:
robocopy E: F: /mir /e /mt:16 /log:"F:\backup.txt"
Maybe WD software only backs up WD drives?
The caddy-fied HDD isn't a WD drive...
I appreciate that people like their dragging and dropping into cloud storage but that's not an option for me at work (I've just asked and they have told me so) and moving between computers on a regular basis makes a web interface too clumsy.
that's not an option for me at work (I've just asked and they have told me so)
While I can understand that, I am surprised they are happier for you to carry about essential work files on a USB stick (which is presumably unencrypted, has a limited lifetime and is currently not backed up).
Ah well.
Silly question, but are these PCs not networked together anyway? Or at least able to see your work's servers?
To answer your original question, if you don't want to do the backup by copying files (either manually or via a script) then the other way is to take an image of the USB drive:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/storage/create-image-backup-of-usb-drive-3509099/
That'll give you an exact duplicate of everything on the drive in a single file.
What do the people who say no to Dropbox suggest?
As said it's not drag and drop you just work in the shared folder, but it's of no use to you.
Don't worry guys, it doesn't look like I'm going to get there with this one. I do have a backup of the USB stick but using a different method to the WD MyCloud thing (it was a SanDisk USB backup thing that did let me backup my work USB stick). The attraction of the WD solution is that it is backing up in real time whenever a change is made. If I could have plugged my work USB stick into laptop and it backup like that as I worked on it that would've been perfect but apparently not possible.
Of course yes, our work PCs are networked, and I can access them from home via a web interface which is fine for the occasional file however when you're working on 10-20 files over the course of a weekend the whole download/modify/save/upload thing can get a little complicated and there's a risk of getting out of sync.
ps - talking in the past tense in para #1 because my laptop died last week and I've not re-installed the SanDisk thing yet
pps - I was fully backed up so no files lost 😉
The attraction of the WD solution is that it is backing up in real time whenever a change is made.
And if you accidentally delete half your work, and save it, you've no backup at all.
Really, this needs to be addressed by the IT bods at work. You have to work from home but don't have the facilities to do so effectively, if it were me I'd be asking them to pick one.
Something like Google Drive or a.n.other cloud storage solution would be ideal I'd have thought, being twitchy about that but perfectly fine with you wandering about with an easily lost USB key is madness.