Note: This post only applies to the Legacy database!There is no need to panic over the possibility of the thumb drive failing and then losing your data.
The key is to back up every time you remove your drive from a computer. I back mine up to my computer before I take it to church. Then before I leave the church, I back it up to the Awana computer before bringing the thumb drive home. I also back up after any major amount of work that I do in the software. It just makes sense.
Using a thumb drive is only as risky as using your home computer or an external drive you haul back and forth. It all assumes frequent, simple, back ups. Yes, thumb drives can fail, but so can desktop hard drives.
Since Rick recommends using the thumb drive to contain the software as one way to use it at home
and at church, I'm thinking it is pretty secure....
if you back it up. That should be the rule with anything you do on any computer. In fact, I actually back up to an external hard drive that I back my desktop to.
Also, I have a geek husband who's day job is Business Continuity Managment/Disaster Recovery Planning in the IT world. I double checked this with him before typing its! He told me he's had the same thumb drive for over two years....he took it to Kuwait (read sand and heat!) on a 15 month deployment and back and is still using it! He runs program's off of it all the time.
He also backs it up all the time. He most certainly knows, it could die any time!
You just can't beat the convenience of hauling it to church in your pocket....except when you decide last minute to change clothes right before club and forget that you already tucked it in your
other pocket....I did that last week! Yikes. No problem, I downloaded the trial version to the church computer, then applied my most recent (7 day old) church back-up. I didn't do anything in it except use it for reference....but it was great to have that BACK-UP! (I'd already printed off and hand carried my check in sheets to save time once I got to church.)
My two cents!
Did I mention you should always back up all of your computer files?