You may encounter a bit of a lag depending on the speed of your USB connection to the external hard drive, but otherwise it shouldn't be an issue. Make sure you are storing backups on a different device in case of damage/theft/etc.

yes i was thinking on having 2 hard drive, one for everyday work and the other one for backup. would i need to install the program on the hard drive or is it still on the actual laptop? i know nothing of technology...

The program is best installed on the laptop. With a USB-3 drive, it is reasonably fast, and since the data is on a separate drive from Windows and the Sage 50 software, it may even be faster.

If it's mostly more space that you need, get a larger drive installed in the laptop, and have the old drive put in an external case.

Be aware that external hard drives can be easily damaged if dropped or banged around. It's very easy to forget they're attached, and pick up a laptop. A separate drive is best for doing backups, not for storing all your work.


I have used Sage 50 / Simply Accounting on a high quality USB memory key and had no problems, but Sage recommends against it. (partly because not all USB memory keys are high quality)

Actually you should just consider Hosting the system. We are able to do so for about 43$/user per month, minimum 3 users. GoToMyERP.com

I purposely purchased my laptop with minimal storage as I have for many years maintained all of my data on an external hard drive. I back up to USB keys, one for each client. Every once in a while 5 or 6 weeks I will even create a copy of the file on the USB key. I work this way so that all the keys can be maintained in my office safe which is not totally wise as they are not off premises. My external hard drive is backed up on two different cloud services whenever the laptop is on with the HD plugged in. Sounds excessive but I remember many years ago when desktops were brand new and I lost one hour of work because the power cable was kicked out accidently. Back up, Back up, try to restore, and back up more.

Good Morning Clyde and fellow Sage 50 friends,
Are there certain USB that are not as reliable? At the moment I have everything on my laptop as I just started to enter my data but I HAVE to backup on something else or I will loose everything if something goes bad. I want to eventually get an external hard drive but at the moment, the money is tight so I was thinking a USB would do the trick. How would you proceed? Should I do my backup on my laptop as usual and make a copy on the USB or simply setting up my backup to only go on the USB? Also, would you send the actual data on the USB too or leave it on the laptop? I'm just scared that my laptop will become really slow once I have several years of data on it. I am not much of a computer geek so all that data thing is a little confusing for me. At my day job we work on a server so I know for sure my data is safe but for my small company, I'm scared to mess up!!! Also, you mentioned something about backing up in the cloud... I thought that using those don't work for Sage as I remember reading a post about using Google Drive etc.? Any suggestion would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance :)

LaChapa said:

Are there certain USB that are not as reliable? At the moment I have everything on my laptop as I just started to enter my data but I HAVE to backup on something else or I will loose everything if something goes bad.

Any one of them, are better than nothing.   Ask at the store for a good one.  There's a lot of competition, usually more money = higher quality.  If they're in a cookie jar at the counter, they're probably too cheap.   

LaChapa said:

I want to eventually get an external hard drive but at the moment, the money is tight so I was thinking a USB would do the trick.

The money is always tight, here on Earth.  There are online backups that are free, working without backups is a kind of roulette game of chance where you can lose big.  

Last week I bought an internal 1 TB SSHD laptop drive + an enclosure for $200.  I can image everything from laptop to the new drive, swap them, and I have a faster laptop plus a full backup external hard drive.  

LaChapa said:

I'm just scared that my laptop will become really slow once I have several years of data on it.

It won't. 

LaChapa said:

At my day job we work on a server so I know for sure my data is safe but for my small company, I'm scared to mess up!!!

You should be doing backups of every file that you work on, every day.  I picked up a couple of 2 TB drives last year for under $200 each.   If I backed up one large company file every night, it would take 25 years to fill one.   Since I alternate them, it would take until I'm 107 years old to fill them both.

LaChapa said:

I thought that using those don't work for Sage as I remember reading a post about using Google Drive etc.? Any suggestion would be appreciated!

To use online backups, such as a Google Drive, there is one extra step after you back up your data to an external drive of some kind, you have to copy it to the folder where it will be backed up from.

A backup that is happening directly to the 'cloud' folder, is like trying to put together a paper file while someone else is grabbing pages to photocopy.  It will sort of work, but there can be problems.

Ok so I will go grab a few USB asap!! As for using it, when I do the backup I only have to find the USB and that's it or do I have to do some other step?  I would assume saving to the USB would be the same steps as saving on my C drive?

As for what you said here:

Last week I bought an internal 1 TB SSHD laptop drive + an enclosure for $200.  I can image everything from laptop to the new drive, swap them, and I have a faster laptop plus a full backup external hard drive.  

What is that?  It sounds like its not the usual External Hard Drive... Is that better?

Sorry for the dumb questions, I don't understand all the tech lingo... Thank you for your advise, I need to get this all sorted out soon.

Thanks

Backing up to a USB drive works the same as backing up to the C drive. Depending on the settings in Windows, plugging in the drive will open a menu that tells you which drive letter it is, and asks if you want to open it in Explorer, or sync up your music, etc.

With all USB drives, be careful to use the 'safely remove' button in Windows, or shut down the workstation, before you pull them out - otherwise you could lose some, or even all, of the data on that USB.

Some USB drives come with encryption software so that no-one else can access the data. In my experience, the person most likely to be locked out, is the owner. Do Not Use Encryption On Your Backups! Keep them in a safe place, instead.

An SSHD is a dual hard drive that has 1,000 GB of space on a 'regular' mechanical hard drive, as well as a smaller 'solid state' drive, and fits into a 2.5 inch laptop drive bay. The laptop will have 4x the space and run faster.

so technically its like adding an extra drive directly in my laptop instead of having an external hard drive? if that is the case and its not that expensive, i think its much better than using an external hard drive to store my original data as some mentioned it is easy to forget its attached and easy to drop. The external hard drive should only be used to store the backups (or usb) right? Am I understanding your lingo correctly?

LaChapa said:

so technically its like adding an extra drive directly in my laptop instead of having an external hard drive?

Not instead of.  Your laptop still has only one physical hard disk, but it would be a faster drive with much more capacity.   And the 'old' drive out of the laptop becomes an external drive for backups.

It's still sort of the same thing, as buying an external drive, but it's complicated to swap out the drives and image one to the other.   If you aren't comfortable doing this yourself, you should consider getting a refurbished machine to use as a 'server', or just buy an external drive.  

There are two types of external drives, 'Desktop' and 'portable'.   The main differences are that the 'Desktop' ones are larger, and need to plug into a wall outlet for power.

There are also various mini 'servers' on the market.  You can use them to store files, but they won't work with the Connection Manager so they can't be used for working files.

Hello LaChapa & others,
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thank you for all the info, i will keep this thread for my husband to read.