Which is the safest medium for back-ups

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chrisssssss.........
  • Start date Start date
C

Chrisssssss.........

I understand that back-ups or storing information to CD is not a long-term
answer, as the life of CDs is only about 5 years (?).
Is an external hard drive the answer, or does even this form of storage have
a limited life span?
Any advice appreciated.
Chrissss........
 
Chrisssssss......... said:
I understand that back-ups or storing information to CD is not a long-term
answer, as the life of CDs is only about 5 years (?).
Is an external hard drive the answer, or does even this form of storage have
a limited life span?
Any advice appreciated.
Chrissss........
Click to expand...

Hard drives are mechanical devices, and are prone to failure. I would
not want to depend on a hard drive remaining usable for more than 5
years of operational use. If the hard drive was not being used, and
was properly stored in a sealed bag with some desiccant (sp?) then it
should remain usable almost indefinitely, although long term aging
effects may cause problems after 10 years or more.

My best advice would be to use good quality CDR disks and to set up a
procedure of validating the contents and copying them to new disks
every 2 or 3 years.

All of the information that I have seen regarding storage life
indicates that CDR disks are superior (e.g. longer lasting) than CDRWs
because of the different chemical used, and that there are very
significant variations between brands of CDR disks.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm
 
I would suggest investing in a good external backup drive in lieu
of backing up files to a CD. Examples:

Maxtor OneTouch II
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...II Family/Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire and USB

Western Digital Dual-Option Media Center
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=77

Where to Buy
http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=414

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I understand that back-ups or storing information to CD is not a long-term
| answer, as the life of CDs is only about 5 years (?).
| Is an external hard drive the answer, or does even this form of storage have
| a limited life span?
| Any advice appreciated.
| Chrissss........



---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 0519-2, 05/12/2005
Tested on: 5/12/2005 4:23:53 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2005 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com
 
Chrisssssss......... said:
I understand that back-ups or storing information to CD is not a long-term
answer, as the life of CDs is only about 5 years (?).
Is an external hard drive the answer, or does even this form of storage
have a limited life span?
Any advice appreciated.
Chrissss........
Click to expand...

Think about what affordable storage options you had five years ago --
floppies? tapes? And before that we had those wonderful 5 1/4" floppies.
Even if floppies lasted forever, you'd probably want to transfer that data
to something more modern, just because 3 1/2" floppy drives are starting to
disappear and the 5 1/4's are all but gone.

In 5 years (if not sooner) you're probably going to be in the same situation
with the cds. DVDs are getting a lot more common now, but in 5 years, it
might be yet another generation of storage.

Hard drives are a good choice for backup of things you have on your
computer, but making them the sole storage media would make me a bit
nervous. All you need to do is drop one, and you're looking at expensive
data recovery.
 
Chris;
I would not store anything critical in a single place long term .
If the data is critical, you need multiple back-ups in case the primary
fails.
Periodically backing up and keeping the last one or two in different
locations is a more fool proof way to preserve important data.
Technology changes alone can and do render old data inaccessible.
Monitor back-up data carefully to ensure you still have viable data.

There is no single media or media type that can be depended on to be the
only source of critical data.
 
Thanks for the replies. No-one seems to have mentioned 'memory sticks' (or
should they be called flash drives). As these are solid-state devices, how
long is their shelf life? They are now getting bigger and cheaper and sound
a good option to me.
Chrisssss.........
 
Thanks for the replies. No-one seems to have mentioned 'memory sticks' (or
should they be called flash drives). As these are solid-state devices, how
long is their shelf life? They are now getting bigger and cheaper and sound
a good option to me.
Chrisssss.........
Click to expand...

The term magnetic media might help to decide. Anything electronic can be
affected by an external electromagnetic field.

A simple magnet would demonstrate that. Just hold one up to the side of your
monitor.

Picture that happening with your data.

A CD or DVD is only written electronically. I don't think the media on a CD or
DVD can be modified by anything short of a lightning strike. But they can
break. I'm in the process now of reordering an installation disk. Which I'll
make a backup of after it's 1st use.
Nice little crack that now extends half way across from the center.
It's useless.

And another hint. Use the backup to physically verify the data is accurate.
Backing up bad data to a good disk helps no one. For the longest time I thought
I'd bought a bad program because it failed in the same place every time. But
only MY DVD was failing.
Re-opened the original CD and found a nice little thumb print on it. I'd backed
up whatever was under the thumb. The backup software just blindly grabbed what
it saw with no warnings. That thumb print came from the manufacturer.

With CD's and DVD's [good ones] selling for less than $1.00 a piece now if it's
necessary and worth keeping, there's no reason to NOT make 2 backups when you
make the 1st one.

Why CD's and DVD's ? I can't say I've seen any mention of the next generation
of external mass storage in the news yet. They're just making the current
devices hold more and more data. ie: I still have a 250 meg HD, but it's
useless on this ages computers. It was outdated on my P1 less than 7 years ago.
I'm using a 150 gig now, and looking at 500 gig HD's.

Even the CD's and DVD's are being made larger. ie: I have 750 meg CD's, but no
software to read them on the XP OS. I lost a lot of software with that upgrade.
The software that wrote it is incompatible with XP.
 
Normal magnets will not affect memory sticks which are just memory chips in
a different package.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


Husky said:
Thanks for the replies. No-one seems to have mentioned 'memory sticks' (or
should they be called flash drives). As these are solid-state devices, how
long is their shelf life? They are now getting bigger and cheaper and
sound
a good option to me.
Chrisssss.........
Click to expand...

The term magnetic media might help to decide. Anything electronic can be
affected by an external electromagnetic field.

A simple magnet would demonstrate that. Just hold one up to the side of
your
monitor.

Picture that happening with your data.

A CD or DVD is only written electronically. I don't think the media on a
CD or
DVD can be modified by anything short of a lightning strike. But they can
break. I'm in the process now of reordering an installation disk. Which
I'll
make a backup of after it's 1st use.
Nice little crack that now extends half way across from the center.
It's useless.

And another hint. Use the backup to physically verify the data is
accurate.
Backing up bad data to a good disk helps no one. For the longest time I
thought
I'd bought a bad program because it failed in the same place every time.
But
only MY DVD was failing.
Re-opened the original CD and found a nice little thumb print on it. I'd
backed
up whatever was under the thumb. The backup software just blindly grabbed
what
it saw with no warnings. That thumb print came from the manufacturer.

With CD's and DVD's [good ones] selling for less than $1.00 a piece now if
it's
necessary and worth keeping, there's no reason to NOT make 2 backups when
you
make the 1st one.

Why CD's and DVD's ? I can't say I've seen any mention of the next
generation
of external mass storage in the news yet. They're just making the current
devices hold more and more data. ie: I still have a 250 meg HD, but it's
useless on this ages computers. It was outdated on my P1 less than 7 years
ago.
I'm using a 150 gig now, and looking at 500 gig HD's.

Even the CD's and DVD's are being made larger. ie: I have 750 meg CD's,
but no
software to read them on the XP OS. I lost a lot of software with that
upgrade.
The software that wrote it is incompatible with XP.
Click to expand...
 
What about abnormal magnets?
K

Richard Urban said:
Normal magnets will not affect memory sticks which are just memory chips
in a different package.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
Click to expand...
 
Back
Top