Protecting a USB Flash Drive
You can password protect your flash drive to ensure sensitive data never becomes exposed. Of course if you’re only using the drive for family photos or school work, you might not bother. Just be aware that without password protection, anyone could open the drive and or copy anything on it.
Some thumb drives may have proprietary security software pre-installed on them. If so, when you first plug in the drive, you will be prompted by the manufacturer’s software to view the files or setup the USB drive to be secure. The on-screen information guides you through the process of securing your new USB thumb drive.
Another alternative would be to use WinZip to zip up the files you want to put on the drive. WinZip is proprietary software that you can find out more about on www.winzip.com. WinZip has a secure encryption feature built into the latest version. You can secure the zipped files with a password using this method, and then you move the password protected zip file to your USB drive.
Quick Tip: Create a notepad file and insert your first name and email address. Place the file onto the thumb drive. If it gets lost and someone finds the drive, and would like to return it to its owner, they won’t have to dig through your files to find your contact details. Label the file “IF_FOUND_PLEASE_RETURN.txt” or something along those lines. A reward offer might not hurt either.
USB Flash Drives and Backups
A USB drive does not have to be limited to transporting data. As a matter of fact, a lot of people use the drives to backups their personal data. Backups of music files, photos, and documents can be quite large. If you purchase a USB drive for backups, make sure you purchase a large enough version.
You can move files onto a flash drive, for a backup using the same method described earlier in the article.
We recommend creating folders with the date of the backup when you use this method. - Click the Start Menu, choose Computer, and select Removable Disk.
- Inside the main window of the removable disk, right click the empty space and choose New > Folder.
- Give the folder a meaningful name. I commonly write the date directly into the folder name to ensure I have a record of when the backup was created.
Conclusion
USB drives can be used for simple file transfers from one computer to another, and as a backup solution. Most USB flash drive manufacturers have designs that range from bright and flashy to muted, professional drives. Each drive functions in the same way and provides a universal way to transport and house data at an affordable rate. |