For use in going between computers and to take to the FHC, the USB is just fine. It is not that great for long term storage. Unfortunately, many folks are finding that CDs are not as good as folks thought either and you need to periodically copy critical data that is saved to either. For short term storage, the USB and CD are both fine. But the CD does not have the 10 year lifetime that folks thought unless they are the commercially pressed ones (not the ones written from your computer). Bill > Does this mean you're not recommending the use of a USB at all? If not, > what then? go back to the old CD's or floppies? ----------------------- > > Bill recommends using Eject when using a USB. That's a new term to me. > how do you do it? Ethel in Nebraska ---------------------- > > True that. Sadly, even when that's done religiously, they still have a > higher rate of failure than I now trust. So, hooray for redundancy! ---------------------- > > Windows does not always finish copying data to the flash drive, unless you > use the official "Eject" or "Safely remove mass storage device" process. > Otherwise, the last few bytes of data may still be held up in the data > transfer buffer, which means that if you unplug the flash drive without > going through the Eject process, the file on the flash drive may be > incomplete and unusable. Newer versions of Windows (Vista and 7) seem to > have fewer problems in this regard than older versions, but always use the > Eject process anyway. It only takes a few seconds.