DVD Backup

[Matt Whritenour]

what are your opinions of backing up onto DVDs then deleting
off of the Harddrive, this way you are not using up harddrive space

i know it's a better idea to just say store it on a dvd and on my harddrive
but i'd rather just put it on dvd and take it off my harddrive

[K.B.]

DVD media are still an unknown with regard to long-term reliability. I started a thread on this a few weeks back. Do a search - some worrying info in there. Assuming hard drives will just keep going up in volume and dropping in price, you can just keep duplicate copies on external drives (or a networked PC) until a guaranteed permanent medium eventually turns up.

There was another thread about DVD recorders and the consensus was that the Pioneer 108 was the best current buy.

DVD blu-ray is an unknown, and a risk for backup - a lot of closely packed data being read with a high energy blu-laser. Confidence is a few years away.

On-line storage at a remote secure facility with comprehensive back-up may well be the future (seriously!)

On the other hand the EMP from any local nuclear detonation will likely damage any data stored on a hard disk, so if you're anticipating that...

Whatever you do, you should keep multiple copies.

[Matt Whritenour]

On-line storage at a remote secure facility with comprehensive back-up may well be the future (seriously!)

well i guess i can just open a bunch of gmail accounts =)