What is a good alternative for SourceSafe on a USB Drive?

Question

I like to keep my source files on a USB drive for the portability. To date I have been using Visual SourceSafe for this purpose. What is a good alternative to VSS that fulfils these criteria:

• Entire database can be held on a USB "pen" drive
• Code / documentation duplicated on local drives
• Does not require a central server
• Easy to backup and restore using standard backup tools
• Integrates with Visual Studio
• Has a small footprint
• Easy to clean the database and keep small
• Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Vista x64

A good reference on setup would be good too.

Answer 1

I would use SVN (Subversion).

You can use SVN in "file" mode (w/o using the network). combine this with tortoiseSVN, which integrates to explorer, and you have a nice little portable repository.

For Visual Studio integration, there is the commercial($49) VisualSVN (which I believe is the setup used to develop StackOverflow).

Someone also mentioned AnkhSVN which I haven't used, but some people find it less than satisfying.

Answer 2

Don't use SourceSafe. There's major problems with it. See this:

• Article1
• Article2

I'd recommend using SubVersion instead.

If you're using Windows, you can use TortoiseSVN.

If you're working on Linux or other Unix variants, try RapidSVN.