[GLLUG] USB Backup Media

[Chick Tower]

I had considered buying an external hard drive that attaches via a USB 
port for backing up my PCs.  Then it occurred to me that I could do the 
same thing with flash drives, and they would be even more portable and 
would save me money.  I could probably get by with 4GB drives, but 8GB 
ones aren't much more expensive.  I know that the flash drives have a 
limited number of write operations before they fail.  Does anyone know 
if they fail completely, or if there are any warning signs before they fail?

I figure, to minimize writes, I would tar the files to be backed up on 
some extra space, or another partition, on the PC's hard drive and then 
copy that file to the flash drive.  If a flash drive fails, I can just 
pop in another one in its place.  Does anyone see any drawbacks to using 
flash drives as backup media?
-- 

                                Chick