Are you backing up your smartphone, beyond the cloud, to a physical storage?

For representational purposes only.

It is surprising how little attention we pay to backing up data on our smartphones, even though that’s where our important messages, photos and videos, emails, documents and apps lie. There is some work in that direction, but it is selective. For instance, Google Photos, more so if you have an Android phone, gently insisting on the importance of backing up to the cloud. But for most other things, such as documents or even a broader phone backup, there is a need to manually set up Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Dropbox or Proton Drive, to name some familiar options. How about a return to basics?

Simpler, and still mostly without a subscription fee for using companion apps, is the good old physical storage option for backing up the data on your phone. Simply put, a USB drive that can be connected to the phone using the USB-C port. Or as some have referenced over the years – a thumb drive. It can be used to safeguard a copy of all that’s precious to be urgently called upon if there’s a need to restore that data. Quite useful if the phone gets stolen or ends up taking an unforeseen dip in a puddle.

What really are your options?

With Apple having made the switch to USB-C for iPhones, you’d expect greater simplification to happen with external storage devices (the USB-C ones, look for that specific specification) which can now work across the spectrum – Android phones, Android tablets, Apple’s iPhone and iPad line-ups, Mac computing devices as well as the most common of them all – Windows PCs and hybrids. But as is often the case, not all are equals.

One of the easiest recommendations is the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Go USB Type-C drive. As the name suggests, it’s dual-connector, with USB-C on one side and the good old USB Type-A on the other (relevant for an older PC or laptop). This is the USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard (it is an upgrade over the previous generation USB 3.0 ones too that are on sale) that tops out at 400MB/s, or megabyte per second. Actual real-world speeds vary depending on the source device’s port specs and the types of files being transferred – fragmented files always take longer than a single large sized file. Prices on most e-commerce platforms start around ₹719 for 32GB, with 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options also available (performance is similar, across the board). A rather neat design element allows this to be attached to a keyring too.

While this works with pretty much every smartphone, tablet and computing device you may have, Android phones can take advantage of the SanDisk Memory Zone app, which is a rather convenient way of backing up specific data from the phone to the drive. We can hope that a similar app for the iPhone is made available soon, but till that time, iOS’ Files app is your companion. The interface is neat, with manual selection for backing up what you really must. Within this app, you’ll be able to link some cloud storage accounts too – I tested with OneDrive to upload more than 700 photos from the drive to the cloud in one go, and while a factor was the Wi-Fi speed, the drive didn’t create any bottlenecks.

Another option is the Kingston DataTraveler 80M, available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB options with prices starting around ₹1,400. This is also the USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard but topping out at 200MB/s, with a more conventional thumb drive design involving a protective cap for which the positioning can be customised to cover the USB-C connector when not in use. It is fast enough to get the job done for backing up important photos and documents from your phone or tablet too.

There are two ways to look at the reality that the Kingston drive has no additional software to be installed. It may not be a limitation for Windows PCs and macOS computing devices, but for phones, it means you must manually select files to copy to the DataTraveler 80M. It is important to keep track that the selections are copied successfully. Integrated file managers for Android and iOS would be our suggested path towards achieving the backup mission.

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