NO MORE FLOPPIES!

 See the related page, "saving your documents on a public computer".

Backing up or saving your files to a floppy disk used to be the thing to do for secure file storage. The truth is that it was never that secure. We just didn’t know it! (And the manufacturers didn’t tell us.)  The truth about floppy disks is that they are NOT guaranteed to be safe, secure, or 100% reliable.  For a lot of technical reasons that have to do with the way floppy disks work inside floppy drives, you need to know that although you can save a file on a floppy on Computer # 1, you might take that same floppy disk to Computer # 2 and it might – or it might NOT – work. In fact, it might not work tomorrow on the same computer that you used to save the file in the first place!  

So if you have files that you need to back up & save– or use on a different computer – what can you use besides a floppy disk? 

If you’re at the public library*, there are other, better alternatives:

*Floppy drives will become less and less available in the near future at public libraries. Prepare now for their demise!  See this article from the Washington Post about the death of the floppy.

Photo of a damaged floppy diskette. This one could be yours!

If you MUST save files to a floppy disk from one of the library computers, please read this:

FLASH DRIVES

Use a flash drive (also called a thumb drive, a jump drive, pen drive). They’re small, but big in file storage space. Ranging from somewhere around $ 5 - 15 for a 64 -128 MB (megabyte) flash drive to $30-250 for an 8 GB (gigabyte) flash drive, and everywhere in between, there’s one for everyone! A small one – a 64 MB flash drive – will hold the equivalent of 64 floppy diskettes and costs less than a pack of 100 floppies; MB per MB, the cost is probably very similar - and MUCH more reliable!

A flash drive will allow you to load, store, transport files that are up to the size of the flash drive storage space itself – a 128 MB flash drive can hold a single file that is very near that in size, or multiple files that add up to that much space. They can be organized by folders, just like a floppy drive or a hard drive, and you can rewrite over them endlessly.  You can even use a flash/thumb drive to "archive" documents for an extended period of time. Read a newsletter from Kim Komando, the "Digital Goddess" about using thumb drives to archive documents.

Read this article about why flash drives are becoming more popular for library customers:  

http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/nov03/ferrer.shtml

For a selection of flash drives listed in Froogle, look here:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-05,GGLJ:en&q=flash+drives

About Flash Drives with "U3 Technology"

Please read this information if you are trying to use a flash drive with U3 technology.

A word of caution about flash drives with the "U3" technology: many of these drives with this type of software installed are not usable on library computers, since the software requires that a program be run on the library PC, a procedure that security restrictions on library computers do not permit. If you are purchasing a flash drive and intend to use it at a public library, you're probably better off NOT to purchase a "U3" smart drive. Here's a page about the U3 smart drive technology.

ONLINE FILE STORAGE

Send yourself an email with the file attached:

Use a web-based email account (a free account such as Yahoo mail, Hotmail, Gmail) or web-based access to your personal ISP email account (such as AOL, Comcast, Netzero). Email the file as an attachment to yourself and retrieve later from an Internet-connected computer.

File size limits vary from account to account:

Yahoo: attachments must be less than 1000 K (less than 1 MB) – http://mail.yahoo.com

Hotmail: attachments can be up to 2 MB – http://www.hotmail.com

Gmail: attachments can be up to 10 MB in size. http://mail.google.com

Yahoo mail, Hotmail, and Gmail all have large amounts of file space in which you may save email; Gmail* has more than 2500 MB available per account (that’s over 2 GB).  Yahoo gives you 1 GB. Hotmail has the least, only 250 MB.   

*Because Google's Gmail gives you over 2 GB of file space in your Gmail account, they advertise an advantage of "never having to delete mail". This means you can pretty much use your Gmail account as an online "briefcase" like the ones described below, if you can stay under 2 GB of stored files, simply by emailing files to yourself.

Personal ISP-provided email accounts vary, depending on the vendor.

Use a personal online file sharing site:

MediaMax - http://www.mediamax.com; must register for an account; up to 25 GB of free online file storage.    

Box.net - http://box.net ; must register for an account; up to 1 GB of free online file storage.

Yahoo briefcase – http://briefcase.yahoo.com ; requires a Yahoo account (free); gives you up to 30 MB of file storage space. You can upload files up to 5 MB in size and up to a total of 15 MB in size at a time (multiple files). Never expires as long as you continue to log into your Yahoo account at least once every 30 days. Private; no one can access these files but you unless you choose to share them.

Yousendit.com  - no registration necessary. Files up to 100MB in size. Send yourself (in email) a link to the file for later download. Links expire in 7 days or after 25 downloads, so this is not a solution for long-term online file storage.

MailBigFile.com - no registration necessary. Files up to 100MB in size. Upload the file, send an email link to yourself or someone else for file download from the mailbigfile.com site. Maximum downloads 3, file available for 3 days.

Megaupload.com – no registration necessary. Files up to 500 MB in size. Uploaded files deleted after no use for 30 days. Only one download from any IP address at a time. Not a solution for long-term online file storage.

Bigupload.com – no registration necessary. Files up to 500 MB in size for free usage. Uploaded files deleted after no use for 30 days. 45 second wait for download.  Not a solution for long-term online file storage.

FileMail.com - no registration necessary to send up to 2 GB (can be in multiple files). Free. Choose how many times you want the file to be available for download, and how many days you want it to be available.  Password-protection if you choose a premium/corporate account (not free).

So that’s about the size of it. Get away from floppies. Use a flash drive. Use online file storage space. Use email.  Rid yourself of the floppy disk blues!

A WORD ABOUT CD WRITERS AND WHY WE THINK FLASH DRIVES ARE A BETTER CHOICE. (click to read)