Survival / SHTF USB stick

my3cents

I've an ancient 512 MB stick (cost more than 128 GB does now) with all the OSi maps for Ireland on it, at this stage its over 10 years old. Apart from being very unlucky I think you have to be just plain brutal and very careless with gear to damage a USB key. Then my thinking is if you can't keep a usb key safe then what chance have you got with the computer you use it with?

If I get around to sorting out a subset of useful survival books + personal info I'm thinking of sticking it on a Micro SD Card and storing that somewhere safe, Zippo lighter? - name that film

Another thing I must sort out is some software. I was thinking of using something like Puppy Linux to make a key bootable so it can be read on almost any old computer.

ShadowFox

I've broken several flash drives while working 1 was water damaged due to rain 2 were crushed due to incidents beyond my control. That is why I use the corsair survivor one now don't have to worry about it at all.

For hiding a micro sd have a look at spy coins on eBay they work great

tc556guy

ShadowFox wrote: »

The corsair survivor is the toughest flash drive I've come across so far it's expensive but worth the extra money waterproof dustproof shock proof think they come up to 128gb check eBay for them. I've a 4gb on my keys for 5 years now never an issue with it

I'm on my third one as my carry-with-me collection of my documents.
Only problem so far has been that the first one wore out the threads that screw the actual stick and its canister together.
Other than that it still works fine and I've bought two more, one for the BOB and the daily carry replacement.

Tactical

Deise Musashi wrote: »

For an emergency back up USB I would be inclined to fill it then encase the whole thing (wrapped in cling film) inside a blob of silicone mastic, peel it out if ever it's needed.
Shock and waterproof hopefully!

A word of caution.

Most common brands of silicone sealant aka mastic liberate acetic acid when curing. This is corrosive and can have an adverse affect on solder joints, component leads, pcb tracks etc...

Non-corrosive silicone sealant can be bought, as can various other "electronic friendly" compounds.

Also consider epoxy potting compound.

You won't buy the electronic friendly silicone sealant in the local builders merchant but you're sure to find it on-line. Anyone who is stuck I can PM details of commercial suppliers but these generally have a minimum order value.

I'm referring to ruggidising a USB stick so it can be used at any time as opposed to storing for use later.

tc556guy

I can't imagine having to ruggedize the Survivor any more than it is.
if its existing casing was deemed inadequate I'd probably get one of those plastic cases to throw the thing into to give it some more protection, but it does seem rather redundant.

Tactical

I wasn't referring to ruggedising the Survivor. More about up cycling an existing stick where someone may not want to buy a new one.

A Survivor would be the ultimate for the task at hand.

my3cents

Dragging this thread up again rather than start a new one.

With the short daylight hours I've been spending sometime on optimising a "Survival / SHTF USB stick". What I am looking for atm are some readers for pdf's, epub and all those documents that are normally read on a specific "e" reader. I'm really looking for simple readers that just open a document. I don't really want ones that have to go through the process of importing a document and adding it to a library.

I have a 32GB stick with a bootable version of puppy (6.3) which covers a lot of bases but to allow for some redundancy I'm looking for document readers for both linux and windows I can store along with the data.

my3cents

I'll answer my own question here, so far for Windows the best reader program I have found this afternoon (for free) is Sumatra

Sumatra PDF is a free PDF, eBook (ePub, Mobi), XPS, DjVu, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR) reader for Windows.

Now I need something similar for Linux and any for Windows if anyone has a better suggestion.

tc556guy

my3cents wrote: »

I'll answer my own question here, so far for Windows the best reader program I have found this afternoon (for free) is

Now I need something similar for Linux and any for Windows if anyone has a better suggestion.

Thanks. I added that one to my Survivor stick.
can't recall if I offered to put you in the loop for the thumbdrive of prep document stuff that's going around. Might save you from reinventing the wheel if you want to borrow the way I have mine set up

lostboy75

tc556guy wrote: »

Thanks. I added that one to my Survivor stick.
can't recall if I offered to put you in the loop for the thumbdrive of prep document stuff that's going around. Might save you from reinventing the wheel if you want to borrow the way I have mine set up

To save the cost of posting from the US, I can give access to tc556guys information, if you want.

tc556guy

lostboy75 wrote: »

To save the cost of posting from the US, I can give access to tc556guys information, if you want.

That would be an option, if he's only looking for a basic cross section of essential documents.
The overall collection is constantly expanding. For instance, I just acquired about a TB of data in a collection exchange with the owner of the Librarian prep document website. It'll take me weeks to weed through it all and get it catalogued and checked against duplicates in my collection. Thankfully it is winter.

Amalgam

Data is useless without assured access, don't neglect, 'converters' for any USB drives you may have. To access yourself, or to share.

Some of them are tiny, so, shouldn't hinder you, from the point of view of weight/space.

I picked up the two USB male to micro USB female this week, below, to the left and right of the two euro coin. Thinner than the coin too. They fit inside the male USB plug to convert it to male micro USB. About two euro, P&P inclusive, from an eBay seller based in China.

The north of the coin, bog standard, full size, male or female usb, to micro USB. The likes of DX sell them in pairs, two dollars something, P&P included, from China.

The two other drives are Micro SD readers, one flush, one that sticks out, again, one of many choices from the likes of DX.com...

Don't overlook eBooks like the Barnes and Noble first generation Nook, they can run a full size Android install, after a fair amount of fiddling. They tend to be cheap too!

my3cents

One obvious thing to be aware of if you are using SD cards, like I do, not all computers will read the 64GB ones or even natively but will if put into a suitable SD USB card reader