I’ve noticed many EDC’s pictured here include a 128 MB USB drive on the key ring. Given how many magnetic fields we’re exposed to anymore, does anybody worry about their data being lost? I’m too cheap and distrustful to pay for remote server backup, but I’m considering different ways to back up my personal data in case of home disasters that would destroy my computer and peripherals. My prejudice is to back up to CD’s and store them in the safe deposit box, with relatives, and with my bug-out stuff. As far as I know, CD-ROM’s are not subject to corruption by strong magnetic fields like I assume the USB drives are.

How do people use or like the little USB drives? I saw a Victorinox SAK packaged with one at Target last night, which is what prompted my question.

The question is why do you think USB drives would be corrupted by magnetci fields. They are not magnetic media, they are flash rom (EEPROM). Flash roms are the kind of thing you put the software on for a satalite or spacecraft where your getting exposed to much more radiation than here on earth.
I use multiple forms since each has advantages and disadvantages.
My flash drive I keep my calendar and address book on and it it automatically backed up each time I plug it in via a simple hotplug script. Those two files are my absolute most important to me so the flash drive is the third form of backup. I backup those files and all my other data to CD's at regular intervals and do a quick dump of everything to an external hdd in between. This way I'm covered for differnt kinds of failures of backup systems.

Thanks, I didn't know and thought they were magnetic - hence the question. I had a vague recollection of someone telling me flash drives were a magnetic medium.

You can get quite a bit more storage than 128 Mb for cheap. I think I just paid something around $17 for 256 Mb. Still a small-ish amount by todays standards, but fine for my son who needed it for homework assignments from school. I've personally never experienced any data loss or corruption off of any of these USB thumbdrives. Pretty cool and reliable gadgets in my opinion.

512M and 1G are starting to show up for $50 or less now. I have a 128M Lexar Jumpdrive and it died on my a month or so ago and was still just within the 2 year warranty. I sent it back to Lexar who then sent me an e-mail stating I could reply back that if data recovery was not necessary I could get my warranty replacement returned to me quicker. Since it was a backup of a backup I electec to not bother with their recovery, but it was interesting that they even ofered it which is abnormal for data storage devices. So even though I paid a bit more for the brand name (well that was all the store had a couple years ago) if data recovery service is included it makes me feel a bit better about using it. I may just buy a 1G here soon, thats more than a CD.

It would be great if someone would post the advantages and disadvantages of the different media.

Here's a readable description from Wikipedia.

There have been previous threads that sort of cover what you want. Not exactly though.

Backups: Make 'em often, Make multiple copies and spread 'em out.

Eugene--mind elaborating on what you meant by "died on you"? You're the first person I know who has had a USB drive fail on them, so I'm curious to know what happened.

I imagine that there are different types of failures. Some may prevent you from accessing the memory, but the data itself is still safe. In other cases, the data becomes corrupted somehow.

If you go with backups to CD's, don't forget to physically protect them. A hard case, like those cheap plastic ones, will help protect them against scratches. Scratches to the "bottom" surface are not as critical as scratches to the "top" surface, which could damage the shiny coating that your data is actually stored in because the plastic is (usually) thinner on the top surface, particularly with cheaper brands.

For long term archiving, it's best to avoid writing on the CD's, but if you do, don't use permanent markers like Sharpies, which contain chemicals that may damage the plastic over time. You can buy markers made for writing on CD's.

CD's could also be damaged by heat, so even in a safe deposit box, fire could still damage the CD's. If you keep a set at home, then use a fire safe designed for computer media. Paper burns at a much higher temperature than is safe for things like diskettes, so not all fire safes are created equal.