Backup USB Drive With Alarm
When I am working on different solutions for myself or others, one of the biggest requirements is whether or not it is GFG (Good For Grandma) Certified. This is what I was looking for when I was trying to figure out a really easy way for people to back up their data and keep backing up their data. I was aiming for people who don’t have multiple computers or a home network and really don’t have a lot of data to back up.
What I came up with was a USB backup drive. On the drive, I have also attached a digital watch. (More about the watch later!)
The contents of the drive are pretty simple. On the root of the drive, I put an autorun.inf file that automatically starts up the backup process. There is a TrueCrypt volume on the drive that is used for the backup. Once the volume is open, the backup begins. You can use any freeware backup program that you want to copy the data to the encrypted volume. You can get a nice list of the portable ones over at the Portable Freeware Collection. Once the backup completes, it unmounts the TrueCrypt volume and pops up a notice to the user that the backup is done.
Now, what’s with the watch? Well, I found that many people are not too savvy when it comes to remembering to do their backups. I know that they could probably program a reminder into their calendar or schedule a reminder task but this is often more than most people can handle. The watch has a timer on it that goes off each day at the same time. This is the reminder to the user to start their backup.
The other nice thing about the watch is that it is something familiar that many new users will be comfortable with. And, they do not have to rely on their computer to be running in order to be reminded.
The other really nice thing about this is that your backup goes with you. So if your office goes up in smoke, you still have your data!
There are a couple of gotchas with this setup, though.
- Be sure that you have enough disk space on the USB drive. This is probably the easiest mistake to make.
- Don’t ignore the alarm. Do the backups and go for coffee.
- Don’t forget the password. Without it, you may as well not do backups.
This is not the best backup solution in the world and it does not fit everyone’s needs. But if you just have one computer and want to back up a small amount of data, this could be a really good solution for you.
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One Response to “Backup USB Drive With Alarm”
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Brian Gaut Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 11:37 amI love it! I’m definitely getting a few 1-gig’s for the family. Now they can each have their own backup solution.
You know what would be great though? Maybe theres a few things you could do (in AutoIT) to make a set of programs to compliment this backup solution. Why rely on finding the right backup program that will just work, when you could make one and have it do everything perfectly.
For example, you could have the autorun open up and see who is currently logged onto the computer, and thats the directory that it would back up to, for example when multiple users would be using one computer.
Or how about a feature that would tell you when your flash drive is starting to get full? A dialog box could pop up telling you to go through all your saved files and delete some (or to just get a new flash drive… hmm….)
Yeah! If your drive is full, the program would tell you to insert a new flash drive and click OK. Upon clicking OK, it would format the flash drive and then copy the needed programs and settings onto the drive! How great would that be?
I know I wouldnt want mom calling me up every time she filled up her drive.
