Alix <alix@alix.com> wrote in news:973BD4762ACEC51D7E@:

Bit of a daft POV to compare on price. You are looking at two totally
different things, that each have pros and cons, you need to work out
what you need more. Do you want the speed and easy access of a HDD, or
do you want the ability to back-up and store elsewhere, or make your own
DVDs.?? Bugger the cost!

--
Thank you kindly

POD {Ò¿Ó}
¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸¸ .·´¯`·.¸
Oh people, know that you have committed great sins.
If you ask me what proof I have for these words,
I say it is because I am the punishment of God.
If you had not committed great sins,
God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.
¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·.¸¸ .·´¯`·.¸

In my opinion the data is safer on DVD than on the hard drive.

If your disks are rated at 8x burn I would burn at 4x since I find it
gives better results.

DVD single layer is about 4.7 Gb max. So your 100 GB for 25 is straight
arithmetic. You will lose some in directory stuctures burning a data
disc.

Make sure you do a read after write check to ensure the data is
correctly written to disk.

marks542004@yahoo.com wrote:
Safe? Not at all, I used to have my commonly used install files on one
DVD-r then one day for no apparent reason, none of my 4 DVD drives on 3
different machines would recognize the disc. There were no scratches
or scuffs on the disc, it just stopped being readable, If this happened
to a HDD then the data would be recoverable but with a DVD, I don't
know what can be done. I suppose it is financially viable to make
copies of these types of discs and seal them away against this sort of
event but you think handling and storing the disc will mean it will
work for a long time but no.

Damon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Damon" <todamon@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.video.dvdr,rec.video.dvd.tech,uk.media.dvd
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: DVD versus hard drive


At around £5-10 for a spindle of 25 DVD-Rs you could always take 2 copies of
the data and lock one away as a double backup.

Although I too would rather keep it all on a Hard Disk. I have a DVD Writer
too, but I backup all my critical data to an external USB Hard Disk

Sorry I don't see where the OP says re-writable.

I would probably consider a rewritable safer than a HD in storage.
Just make sure you do not accidentaly erase it and do a yearly
read-verify to test degradation. As archives they need to be in a temp
and humidity controlled environment as well as not exposed to light.

Have you ever tried getting mold off a HDD platter ?

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 23:02:56 GMT, Lordy.UK <spam@recycle.bin> wrote:

Actually a re-writable is more stable than a DVD-R because the dye
used on the coating lasts longer before it begins to break down. One
is a vegetable derived dye and the other is a metallic dye coating.
The DVD+RW will last longer than a DVD+R.

In article <1135935122.000997.47430@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>,
todamon@gmail.com says...

The typical strategies are:

1) Add recovery data to the disk (QuickPar, RAR archives with parity
blocks). In addition to allowing you to verify that your files are
still readable, they allow you to recover from sectors that are no
longer readable. At least, as long as you have enough recovery data to
account for the damaged areas.

2) Burn 2 copies and keep them in physically separate locations.
Somewhat easier to do with DVD media then with removable / portable hard
drives.

DVDs also have the advantage when used for archival duty. Because the
media is so cheap, you burn new ones and keep the old ones around as
insurance against the newer snapshots from going bad. A good disk
catalogue program comes in handy here (I use SuperCat).

"Toshi1873" <toshi@notanywhere.jp> wrote in message
news:MPG.1e284ee37e143f61989a18@news.giganews.com. ..
Mostly very sound advice, except that I would disagree about
the relative value of DVDs over Hard Drives. First most power
users or small business would be backing up at least 40-80GB on
a routine, perhaps daily basis. Doing this to 4.7GB disks could
become tiresome, to say the least. The cost of drives of this size
range has dropped to the point that a ten pack goes for < $40
per drive.

The nature of routine backup would allow reusing the oldest
backup drives at some point when the data would never be needed
again. For the OP's media files this might not be the case, but the
convenience of a cheap carrier based removable HD setup, that
provides an unlimited storage capability, could be a better solution.

Also, this way you can keep adding to a drive until it's full, it's
not a one time recording. You can have different drives for each
kind of media or data, adding to it as you get more of that material.

You might also consider that Hard drives are rarely effected by
scratches, smudges or fingerprints. Being sealed, their storage
requirements are relatively relaxed compared to DVDs.

Unfortunately, there are no "Printable" hard drives, so you have
to use stick-on labels, instead of the neat looking labels that I can
have using my Epson Stylus Photo R200 printer on DVDs.

Luck;
Ken

Ken Maltby wrote:

"sealed". A speck of dust or a jolt to the hard drive case is all it
takes to render it useless. the data would be unusable unless very
expensive techniques are used to recover the data. this is why BACKUPS
were created in the first case. In case HARD DRIVES went bad and became
unusable. I was a computer operator and I dealt with different types of
hard drives from the ones that are in DVR's and I'm guessing the DVD/DVR
recorders, to drives where the ONE "hard drive" is about 40 inches in
diameter and a 18 inches high. they weighed about 10 lbs or so and were
very bulky. they were refered to as "disk packs" but the principle is
the same. In contrast, a DVD is easier to handle and even if scratched
there is a chance to repair the disk.

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

Darrell Mayeda
drmayeda@hawaii.rr.com



NOTE: I'm tired of all the spam in my mailbox please leave my last
name
in the body of your reply. Thanks

"drmayeda" <drmayeda@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
news:qo6wf.37418$pE4.33214@tornado.socal.rr.com...
If you drop a hard drive onto a hard surface, especially if it is
still spinning, it's likely toast, but a speck of dust? I "Desert
Stormed" through some of the worst dust environment possible,
and lost not one hard drive. Most of the other equipment faired
much worst.


I also remember the days of "Disk Pack Drives" and the disk packs
weighed more than 10lb, were about 24" in diameter and the principle
is hardly the same. A stack of aluminum platters with a magnetic
coating baked on their top and bottom surfaces, kept in oversized
plastic "cake boxes"; open to the air of the computer room while they
are changed out, makes no sense in this discussion. Unless as an
example where your "speck of dust" had little impact. But I have to
agree that in contrast to the old "Disk Packs" "a DVD is easier to
handle and even if scratched there is a chance to repair the disk";
not that it bears any relevance to this thread.

Luck;
Ken

In article <qo6wf.37418$pE4.33214@tornado.socal.rr.com>,
drmayeda <drmayeda@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
If you are going to backup to removeable hard drives, I'd suggest
using the 2.5" HDs that are designed for lap-tops. Some
manufacturer specs show some will take a 100G shock.

Those old disk packs in units about the size of a washing machine
surely didn't hold a lot of data did they :-)

Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

"Bill Vermillion" <bv@wjv.com> wrote in message news:IssFs9.1Eqr@wjv.com...
The ones I remember from the early 60's, had 80 in their
name, I think it was 80 megs but can't really remember all the
details. They were for three word mainframes and I think it
was 24 or 32 bits, certainly not any bigger. We had a couple
of those "washing machines" sitting near a bank of refrigerator
sized tape drives (they were somewhat musical in nature). We
still fed our programs in using Hollerith/IBM card decks. Talk
about fragile, think of a programmer's reaction to dropping a
large tray of those cards down a stairwell.

Luck;
Ken

In article <qpSdnTI98-dwDlzeRVn-tg@giganews.com>,
Ken Maltby <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
The last time I saw any of the large sized units was when I did a
terminal connection conversion for a company using some Burroughs
minis - 1800s ??.

The order system with phone HAD TO BE UP at all times.

So I designed an RS232 patch bay for the 8 hot modems and 4 standby
modems. And I designed a connection series using triax cable to
replace the twisted pairs they used in the TDI interface.

The problem they had was that devices at the end of the string just
didn't always come on line - due to extreme cable length as
everything looped through.

I designed a bus structure with taps and boosters with tee
connections - about $10 hw at each drop - compared to the 25 cent
phone plug they used before - and it all worked wonderfully.

One computer was used for the phone orders - that came in from hand
held terminals in the field. One was for the business operations
and the third was for the programmers. If anyone went down the
programmers lost their machine, the disk packs were swapped, and if
the order system went down the RS232 patch bay went to the machine
replacing it.

The disk packs were spun down and swapped. You could have all the
electic connections moved over in about 45 seconds - but it took
longer to spin the packs down, swap them and them boot them up.

So there were three of the washing machine sized drives.

Two months earlier I had worked on an electronics catalog system
that was based on laser disk for catalog page display and they had
a LOT of those 'washing machines'. One full room and there were
at least forty of those disk systems. It really did look like the
sales floor for a washing machine dealer.

After the job with the terminals I got another call from someone
else, and then next thing I knew I was working for myself doing
weird jobs that other couldn't seen to get their hands or thoughts
around. My previous engineering experience in broadcast and
recording helped a lot. And once I got fully involved in computers
I never used a soldering iron again!!!!

Bill
Bill

--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

Joe wrote:
Simple answer. None of these discs have been around as long as the HDD so
how is anyone able to do anything but speculate? I have hard drives that are
older than any disk format that still have accessible data. I would say
without a doubt that at this time HDDs will outlast any disk if they are
treated properly in the realm of archiving. Store disks without using them
and they may decay just sitting there. If discs are rotting already then
what does that say about them. Store HDDs in the same manner without having
them powered up and I say they are a better answer then just the disc alone.

CW

ST wrote:
Gig for gig HDDs are cheaper and becoming more so every day. I have many
in removable drawers on a shelf that I might power up once in a great while.
HDDs are sealed while discs are not. Many other reasons to go with the HDD
over and DVD format. Buy a spindle of DVDs and a HDD and see how easier it
is do archive. Keep the HDD stashed and the DVDs stashed and tell me what
you feel more comfortable about.

My 2cents.

CW

guv wrote:
Well lets see now. You can write to a 300gig drive how many times? What
happens to the DVDs when they are full and how long do they last? How many
gigs worth of coaster are floating around compared to used HDDs that still
work fine? How long does it take to burn just ONE DVD a coaster or not? I
will stick with my HDDs for backup and archive.
Wild idea you say? Thanks

CW

guv wrote:
Gig for Gig HDDs are getting cheaper. This is true is it not. I did not to
mean that GIG for GIG HDD over DVD are cheaper. Lets talk about gigabyte per
hr then. How much is 300 gigs worth of DVD burning time worth to you?

You archive by burning and I will write to a HDD. Let me know what when
you're done. Now who is silly.

While it is true that hard drives are backed-up in part
because they may fail - "in service"; a number of respected
organizations back-up to other hard drives. These drives
are kept "out of service"/stored in a safe fashion. The main
source of "disk failure" is a matter of critical data corruption,
from software errors, human error or deliberately by a virus,
things that don't happen to a hard drive in off line storage.

Unless you keep your hard drives in a massive fluctuating
magnetic field, the data on the platters will last several
decades, in storage. Burned, die based DVDs are still a big
question mark. And what evidence there is, supports the
position that at least some dies are subject to deterioration/
rot over time. It may be that the current dies have solved
that issue, but only time will really tell.

Luck;
Ken

Ken Maltby wrote:
Exactly and thank you for making my point. I have a shelf of 15 HDDs that
just sit there in removable drawers. Sure it takes a few minutes to plug one
in. There are still people that are fascinated with burning DVDs I guess.

"Cliff Wild" <CliffWild@xemaps.com> wrote in message
newsLSdnQIX96KmlFbeRVn-qw@comcast.com...

I am looking at making room on my "TeraStation" NAS
by storing TV series out to separate HDD. If I can mount
the drives into an external USB2 enclosure, I would be able
to plug them into my "LinkTheater" HD Media Player, the
NAS, or a computer.

What do you think of the "Combo" Drive Enclosures that
can interface using USB or Firewire or SATA 150 ?

Luck;
Ken