Moving to Linux — Backing Up Data

I have told some people that I would help them move to Linux from the evil/insane, and soon-to-be uninstallable-for-many Windows 11. This turns out to be quite a lot of people, so I will attempt to get them started via my blog. I know of three realistic choices: my favorite ‘MX Linux’ which is derived from the hard-to-use ‘Debian Linux’, ‘Ubuntu Linux’, also derived Debian Linux, and ‘Linux Mint’ derived from Ubuntu, which mitigates some of Ubuntu’s peculiar quirks, and probably most resembles Windows.

However, before one gets started, one surely needs to back up their existing data! You probably need to do this any case. I think the easiest way to do this is to buy a good USB-to-system-disk (SATA III ) adapter, plus a quality SATA III SSD drive. I would not format it with the Windows NTFS, nor the Linux ext4, which are sophisticated but may create some issues. I would just format the whole drive with ‘exFAT’ (really old Linux may require installation of ‘exfat-fuse exfat-utils’ to use it). It will also work in Windows. You might need someone with Linux to do this formatting.

Now here are a few things that might possibly spare you some confusion.

People sometimes use gigabytes (GB) units, but in other situations use gibibytes (GiB) units to measure storage capacity. The main difference between these units is that a gigabyte is a multiple of 10 and a gibibyte is a multiple of 2. One gigabyte (GB) equals 10⁹ = 1000,000,000 bytes of data, while one gibibyte (GiB) equals 2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 bytes of data. They are nearly the same since 1000,000,000/1,073,741,824 = about 0.93. The reason for this is that humans use base 10 arithmetic, but computers use base 2 arithmetic. You can almost always ignore this difference.

Solid state drives (SSDs) can achieve read speeds up to 35 times faster than traditional spinning disk hard disk drives (HDDs). You will very likely find yourself searching for information on a disk. My computer took a whole day to find something on an HDD.

All storage eventually fails, including SSDs, HDDs, tapes, CDs/DVDs, etc. This happens regardless of whether the media is in-use or not. For consumer-grade SSDs, data retention typically ranges from 1 to 5 years without power under normal storage conditions, i.e., at a temperature of around 30°C. The cooler the temperature the longer data remains uncorrupted.

Flash memory can be read any number of times without any wearing-out issues. However each flash memory cell within a consumer-grade SSDs can typically endure from 500 to 3,000 write cycles before reaching their end of life. But good SSDs contain circuitry that automatically distributes data to minimize the reuse of their memory cells.

I buy through eBay.com. For a really fast USB-to-system-disk (SATA III) adapter (they’re still cheap so buy two so you can refresh your data yearly):
USB 3.0 to SATA Adapter for Hard Drive 2.5″ 3.5″ HDD SSD with 12V 2A Power
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224060531713

For SSDs I think Kingston is pretty good (consider how much you need to back up, maybe buy two since the price will likely go up; I would get the good one):
Kingston SSD 2.5” SATA III
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=memorydiscounters&store_cat=0&store_name=memorydiscounters&_oac=1&_nkw=kingston_ssd

Now you can install without fear, or just back up. Every install is likely a bit different. Have fun.