Product: Back in a Flash, a USB device for automatic backup of files
Features: Comes in different sizes: 3.5, 7.5, 15.5, 31.5 and 63.5-gigabytes. Designed to do backups daily at the same time, as long as the USB unit is plugged in. Can provide ongoing backups. If Windows fails, has bootable operating system (Linux). Doesn't work on Macs.
Price: Prices range from $49.95 for 3.5GB, to $279.95 for 63.5GB. Sold at backinaflash.com.
Ups: By default it'll back up everything in My Documents, but you can customize it to whichever folders you want. And if your system totally crashes, a whole operating system lives on the drive, so you can just open and edit your files off the USB device.
Downs: If you buy one of the smaller storage units, you might not be able to backup videos. For example, I tested the 15.5 GB model and it wouldn't download a file larger than 300 megabytes in order to conserve space.
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If you're not tech savvy, I have a feeling some areas of the settings menu can be a little confusing. Even though the menu isn't as friendly as it could be, at least there are plenty of instructions and online chat help.
Bottom line: This is a new product from a South Florida company. Visually it's not very sleek. But it goes beyond your average backup since you can boot an entire Linux operating system off this baby -- and that'll come in handy if Windows goes completely down while you're working on a project in the middle of the night. The company provides detailed instructions on how to do this and use Linux, since it's not something most of us do every day.
