Alternative to CD/DVD for backup?

[Jim Light]

Hi,

I have been wondering if there is an storge device that has the read
access speed and the convenience of an HD with the safety of DVDR
backups. I have been looking into SD Hard Drives, however, those seem
to have their own issues.

In short, what is the safest way to store my files without having to
backup to permanent media?

Thank you!

Jim

 

[Rod Speed]

I have been wondering if there is an storge device that has the read access
speed and the convenience of an HD with the safety of DVDR backups.

HDs are as safe or safer than DVDRs.

I have been looking into SD Hard Drives, however,
those seem to have their own issues.

In short, what is the safest way to store my files
without having to backup to permanent media?

Backup to an HD.

 

[mscotgrove]

HDs are as safe or safer than DVDRs.


Backup to an HD.

I never think DVDs are very safe

Another one to consider is an Iomega Rev drive, and several
cartridges. This solution fits somewhere between DVDs and an external
hard drive. If the volme of data to backup is less than the size of
the disk (I think currently 60GB) then you can have multiple copies,
easily stored away from your PC.

Michael

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

I never think DVDs are very safe

They're safe enough with adequate dupes.

Another one to consider is an Iomega Rev drive, and several cartridges.

Nope, its never going to fly.

 

[Gumby]

Hi,

I have been wondering if there is an storge device that has the read
access speed and the convenience of an HD with the safety of DVDR
backups. I have been looking into SD Hard Drives, however, those seem
to have their own issues.

In short, what is the safest way to store my files without having to
backup to permanent media?

Thank you!

Jim

External USB 2.0 HDD. Backup your data and then turn it off. About as safe
as you can get. Or you can pay for an upload service were you backup your
data to their HDDs. I've had cdr goe bad just sitting there doing nothing.
I trust my extenal HDDs more than a cdr.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi,

I have been wondering if there is an storge device that has the read
access speed and the convenience of an HD with the safety of DVDR
backups.

Hmm. It would be difficult to degrade a HDD down to the reliability
level of DVDR. Maybe a HDD in an insolated case so it runs very hot?

I have been looking into SD Hard Drives, however, those seem
to have their own issues.

Indeed. Very slow on writes or very expensive.

In short, what is the safest way to store my files without having to
backup to permanent media?

HDDs for large storage volume, DVD-RAM for small ones. Be warned
though, that DVD-RAM can get very slow when writing. I am currently
evaluating some different media brands and the combination of LG burner
and Verbatim disks definitely has speed isssues. Reliability is fine
though, at least as far as I can tell. I will be getting a Samsung
burner and three more media brands in the enxt few days.

Since my MOD is in the process of dying (has trouble writing, still
reads everything perfectly) and replacement drives are hard to get,
I currently have to find some very high reliability long-term
archiving solution. Preferred would be redundant backup to DVD-RAM
(multiple media), fallback a large folder I copy over from HDD to
hadd and keep on several ones (different servers) at any time.

Arno

 

[Gumby]

HDDs for large storage volume, DVD-RAM for small ones. Be warned
though, that DVD-RAM can get very slow when writing. I am currently
evaluating some different media brands and the combination of LG burner
and Verbatim disks definitely has speed isssues. Reliability is fine
though, at least as far as I can tell. I will be getting a Samsung
burner and three more media brands in the enxt few days.

Since my MOD is in the process of dying (has trouble writing, still
reads everything perfectly) and replacement drives are hard to get,
I currently have to find some very high reliability long-term
archiving solution. Preferred would be redundant backup to DVD-RAM
(multiple media), fallback a large folder I copy over from HDD to
hadd and keep on several ones (different servers) at any time.

Arno

My Samsung DVD-RW does DVD-RAM too but have never used that capability.The
reason is because the last time I checked the disks are very expensive. How
much do you pay for yours?

 

[Arno Wagner]

@mid.individual.net:

My Samsung DVD-RW does DVD-RAM too but have never used that capability.The
reason is because the last time I checked the disks are very expensive. How
much do you pay for yours?

I am currently looking at Verbatim (not good quality), Maxell (very
good and 5x in addition), Imation (reasonable, but type 2, so you have
to remove them from the cartridge) and Fuji (reasonable). They all
cost 3-4 Euro/USD per disk more or less. I will post some more detailed
quality scores here soon.

Arni

 

[Gumby]

I am currently looking at Verbatim (not good quality), Maxell (very
good and 5x in addition), Imation (reasonable, but type 2, so you have
to remove them from the cartridge) and Fuji (reasonable). They all
cost 3-4 Euro/USD per disk more or less. I will post some more
detailed quality scores here soon.

Arni

OK, thanks. Here are my choices.

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=dvd-ram

Is this the Maxell disks you refer too?

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=859767&vpn=636070
&manufacture=MAXELL

$4.40 is an ok price, last time I checked they were about $20.00 each.
Just to make sure I understand how DVD-RAM works. You can read write to
them just like a HDD and don't need to install any packet writing
software like you do with an RW disk? They are far more robust than RW
disks too? I found RW disks to be very flaky and unreliable.

 

[Arno Wagner]

OK, thanks. Here are my choices.

Is this the Maxell disks you refer too?

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=859767&vpn=636070
&manufacture=MAXELL

From the Maxell website I conclude that the disks you found are
the 3x variant. I cannot say anything about them. Its seems however
that they use the same "HGX stamper technology", which might indicate
a similar high quality level.

http://www.maxellcanada.com/computer_prod/Menu/catleaf.asp?cat1=Computer+Products&cat2=DVD-RAM&cat3=

I suspect the 5x on this page are the ones I use, although the
packaging looks different. They look like this:

http://www.alcasa.de/neu/product_in...-Speed.html/XTCsid/ml957nhapv6pu5spkucke4ccr6

I have no idea whether that is special packaging for the UE market or a
different product. My best guess is that all Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media
are the same, but same are branded as "DATA" media (also on the disk
itself) and others as data/video media. The ones I tested are called
"4.7GB DATA" by Maxell and support 5x writing. For the EU they seem to
have an ITEM code of 275513, whatever that means.

I tried to look whether ncix has them, but after the first request
the site was blocked, apparently for the whole of Europe, continent
of the evil hackers... (may also just have gone down).

$4.40 is an ok price, last time I checked they were about $20.00 each.
Just to make sure I understand how DVD-RAM works. You can read write to
them just like a HDD and don't need to install any packet writing
software like you do with an RW disk? They are far more robust than RW
disks too? I found RW disks to be very flaky and unreliable.

You can read/write just like HDD, but XP does not have the
(generic) driver needed for the UDF filesystem that is higly
recommended for DVD-RAM. Under Linux you need no driver.
I have no idea about Vista. I curently use InCD from Nero 7.0
Essentials under XP. You can format DVD-RAM as FAT or NTFS,
but may get problems. Also the Maxell disks come unformatted,
so you need formatter softeware for UDF also contained in Nero 7.0
essentials). I have no experience with other supporting software
at the moment and I will stay away from Vista as long as possible.

Arno

 

[Gumby]

You can read/write just like HDD, but XP does not have the
(generic) driver needed for the UDF filesystem that is higly
recommended for DVD-RAM. Under Linux you need no driver.
I have no idea about Vista. I curently use InCD from Nero 7.0
Essentials under XP. You can format DVD-RAM as FAT or NTFS,
but may get problems. Also the Maxell disks come unformatted,
so you need formatter softeware for UDF also contained in Nero 7.0
essentials). I have no experience with other supporting software
at the moment and I will stay away from Vista as long as possible.

Arno

Thanks for the info. I won't buy any until I make sure I have the needed
software and drivers. I don't use Nero anymore and use a free prog called
DeepBurner, don't know if that has DVD-RAM support or not. I haven't really
liked Nero since ver 5.x but I do have acces to 7.x if necessary.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Thanks for the info. I won't buy any until I make sure I have the needed
software and drivers. I don't use Nero anymore and use a free prog called
DeepBurner, don't know if that has DVD-RAM support or not. I haven't really
liked Nero since ver 5.x but I do have acces to 7.x if necessary.

I use it for three things only: InCD as UDF driver, the formatting
software to create UDF-Filesystems on DVD-RAM and the disk analyser
program (also freely available) DiscSpeed for quality assessment.
I have to say that I do not like the other components very much.
I did burn onw DVD-RW because I neded to install CentOS, but
I do not see me burning any other non-RAM DVDs in the forseeable
future.

Arno

 

[John Turco]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Since my MOD is in the process of dying (has trouble writing, still
reads everything perfectly) and replacement drives are hard to get,
I currently have to find some very high reliability long-term
archiving solution. Preferred would be redundant backup to DVD-RAM
(multiple media), fallback a large folder I copy over from HDD to
hadd and keep on several ones (different servers) at any time.

Arno

Hello, Arno:

Glad to see that you've finally come around to my way of thinking,
regarding DVD-RAM. :-J


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

<edited for brevity>

Hello, Arno:

Glad to see that you've finally come around to my way of thinking,
regarding DVD-RAM. :-J

Well, seems to be the only affordable long-term storage
media that is still maintained...

Will post disk evaluation resuts here shortly, I am just scanning
some additional maxell DVD-RAM disks.

Arno