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• #1

At last count, I have over 100 usb sticks wandering around my bench, and in my junk drawers, and sock drawer, and in just about every pants pocket. I even found one in a box of cereal last week. Not like a prize sort of thing, but like a careless child sort of thing. I’m pretty sure my house exists at the nexus of some usb vortex, depositing the little buggers everywhere in my house and shop.

Clearly some organization was required, so I went about gathering, formatting, and culling the herd, so to speak. I have all my most commonly used tools on a few, but also try to keep personal and business sticks separate. Which brings me to my question. What sort of methodology do you use for your usb sticks? Do you mark them somehow so you know at a a glance which stick is used for what? In short, how do you keep your sticks organized and know what is on them without plugging each one in?

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• #2

It sounds like you’re using your USB drives to keep the original copies of things. If true, you may wish to re-think the whole concept.

We use to store things on our sticks, but keeping track of what data was on what stick got to be too much. Plus, ensuring we had backups was another headache.

We changed all that and now keep everything on a HD on a fileserver-type PC. That drive keeps the master copy of everything and the USB sticks now hold only copies.

The master has two major folders: OfficeData and PersonalData.

OfficeData contains folders for things we use in the business, such as:

• CustomerData (3.4GB of stuff we might use onsite, such as D7, Fabs, Autoruns, malware removers, av uninstallers, wifi stuff, etc).
• InstallationSource (70GB of installation pgms/ISO images for Office Suites, Graphics, Multimedia, Security Software, etc)
• Finance (e.g. QuickBooks data)
• OfficeTools (e.g. pgms & data used within the shop itself)
• etc.

PersonalData is arranged as you might expect: Music, Pictures, etc.

We have a 1TB external HD that we carry with us when onsite. This allows us to have a complete copy of everything we have in case we might need it, plus it’s a second-level backup.

We now normally carry only two USB sticks: the first stick is a copy of the CustomerData folder, and the second stick contains both a copy of the CustomerData folder and a subset of the OfficeData folder.

Keeping everything up-to-date and synched is simple. Changes are made only to the master copy. The external HD and the USB sticks are kept in sync using a synch-type program such as SynchToy or Beyond Compare (we use the latter).

Sorry for the long post. Hope this helps.

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• #3

I use a Zalman VE 200 to consolidate everything, plus keep a backup on my file server as a master location.

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• #4

It sounds like you’re using your USB drives to keep the original copies of things. If true, you may wish to re-think the whole concept.

I don’t keep originals on the usb drives, but I don’t have a great, standard method for how I handle them either.

We now normally carry only two USB sticks: the first stick is a copy of the CustomerData folder, and the second stick contains both a copy of the CustomerData folder and a subset of the OfficeData folder.

Keeping everything up-to-date and synched is simple. Changes are made only to the master copy. The external HD and the USB sticks are kept in sync using a synch-type program such as SynchToy or Beyond Compare (we use the latter).

Great post! Thanks. So when you create the subset of your OfficeData folder, is that based on what the expected needs of the service call may be, or do you have a standard subset you use each time? I would think, given the size of the folder, it would have to be a ‘what’s needed’ scenario.

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• #5

I also use a Zalman for all of my stuff. However I still have ten or so thumb drives to keep track of. So I use these tags.You can writ on the paper inside exactly whats on the drive and when it was updated. The cost around 50cents. TFPCR&R

Last edited: Dec 6, 2012

CLC

Well-Known Member

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• #6

I personally keep all my USB stuff on my bench machine in organized folders and when i need something i just pop in the USB drive and copy. Of course things I used every day I keep on labeled sticks, but the data is also on the computer.

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• #7

I use an external hard-drive for tools, bootable tools, onsite backups. But the flash drives I do have I just used those little circular stickers that people usually use at garage sales to mark prices. wrote what they were for and stuck them on.

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• #8

not that I am all that organized, but I keep all my tools I want to carry with me in a fileshare on my on my freenas server (could just as easily be in a folder on your hard drive). I keep those tools updated with a regularly scheduled task that runs Ketarin. And to update them to my thumbdrive(s) I use freefilesync.

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• #9

... So when you create the subset of your OfficeData folder, is that based on what the expected needs of the service call may be, or do you have a standard subset you use each time? I would think, given the size of the folder, it would have to be a ‘what’s needed’ scenario.

The subset contains the most commonly-used items. For example, in the Office Suites folder, the master has the installers for AbiWord, Libre Office and Open Office, but only the Open Office folder is included on the USB. If I’m onsite and the situation requires Libre Office, I’ll go out to the car and get the 1TB external USB HD which is a full clone of the master.

What makes it into the subset is a combination of what I use the most and avoiding filling up the stick. I’m now using a 64GB stick which allows a large subset to be carried in my pocket.

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• #10

At last count, I have over 100 usb sticks wandering around my bench, and in my junk drawers, and sock drawer, and in just about every pants pocket.

I have 2. That’s how I keep them organized. And I use just 1 of those 2 99% of the time.

For bigger tasks...like transferring, or making copies of data, we have a couple of WD Passport drives we use between the 4 of us.