Lexar Echo ZE ultra-compact backup drive
Backup you can just forget about?
Review Solid-state storage specialist Lexar, aware that computer users tend not to be very good at maintaining regular backups of their data, has introduced a product line, called Echo, to take the task off users' shoulders.
Lexar's Echo ZE: world's smallest backup drive?
The big drag in backing up a computer, particularly if it's a laptop or netbook, is that you have to remember regularly to hook up the external hard drive you keep your backed up files on. Yes, there's the wireless approach too, but hold that thought for the moment.
Lexar's thinking is that, if connecting a hard drive is inconvenient, it should make a backup drive that's so small you can leave it in place. Ergo, you don't need remember to connect it up and you can happily set your backup software to work automatically safe in the knowledge the drive will always be there.
Now it seems to me there's a problem here. While you might well keep a back up of your data in case your machine's hard drive goes belly up, you also do it in case your computer gets nicked or - if you're a government employee, perhaps - left behind in a seedy drinking den.
Keep it connected to your laptop
If that happens, you can simply reach for your back-up drive and... er... no, you can't, because it's still sitting in the USB port of the machine that's even now being offered on eBay to all comers.
COMMENTS
title
erm, shouldnt the stuff stored on the network drive be covered by a backup system on the server, as opposed to relying on the collection of clients personal backups to recover a DR situation???
I find memeo and a mirrored NAS as a rather efficent backup for my home laptops, seamless incremental backups as soon as they connect to the network, no plugging in, no worries
Yep
This is what happens with Time Machine on my Macbook. I plug it into a powered hub at home, which has my backup drive and CDJs hooked up to it. It backs itself up silently in the background- a fact that I have blessed on a few occasions.
Network Backup?
Surely the network drives would be backed up in a more robust fashion than this?
Network
I've been evaluating this as an option for notebook users and have found that the software doesn't work for data that is stored on a network drive. The policy makes the docs folder appear local but they are actually stored on a network drive.
Anyway the software just states "error" not backed up for each actual network file.
Readyboost
These mini USB flash things look like good devices to use for Windows Readyboost in a laptop. Just depends whether the speed is any good.
