Whats your ideal removable backup method?

[Player0]

You have about 500m of irreplaceable data. You want to have removable backup so you can store this data in a firebox offsite in case of a catastrophe. This data backup needs to make master copies once per week, and you want to update each master backup once per night, and this will all happen automatically at night.

What would be your storage method of choice and why?

[lechumbl]

Hi Tom,

To me, there is only one media that is worthy of that task.
That would be the CD-RW.

The CD-RW is great for a FAST and RELIABLE backup of data.
Tape drives may take up to 8 hours to get a backup. this done on a nightly basis can be quite a hassle. Yes, you can do it as you go to bed, and it is done in the morn, UNLESS there is a problem, and it does not finish.

The drawback to the CD-RW media is after a while the CD-RW reliability drops. I am not sure how many times it can be written to. I think the manufacturors say a hundred time. I know that they are a lot less than that.

So, with that said, I still go with the CD-RW as best choice.

Take care.......

EDIT:.....And, unless you have the money to buy the other options, the CD-RW is already bought and installed. :p

[Drake]

I vote DVD-RW :p

[WackyComputer]

I picked CD-RW because it the type of backup that I use the most.

[tripodal]

You just cannot beat CD-RW, my complaint with them is that cd's are too easily scratched... making jass or zip 750 look better as they absord misuse more easily.

Of coarse CD-RW or even CD-R wins because you can get another on for $.10 eliminating the need to reuse anything.. just date it and toss it in. Plus then you can easily build a compliation of records at the EOD for whatever your backing up. I just say always verify data. (checkbox at the bottem of nero)
You can sometimes read a scratch.. but never write through one.

[sptw]

I have been using Portable Hds and CD-RWs.In this particular case i'd choose CD-RW media to store the backup datas.Cheap, fast and reliable.There are manufactures that claim a thousand of re-record operations.In the same way as Lee, i believe a hundred times for reliable manufacturer would be a trusted number.

[Synthohol]

CD-RW because you can back up locally and offsite to 2 disks quickly (comparitively) if needed.
my .02 is its eiser to get a cd writer online and restoring your files even without an OS on the harddisk. (to me anyway).
not that this is a debate...correct me if i'm inexperienced, if a pc is somewhat old school and ls/120 or zip is not a boot option in the bios, more times than not cd rom is. if no cd boot than a floppy with 2-3 files fixes that, then restore can start. if i'm wrong its only because i never tried to boot to a zip or the other options listed, i allways thought they needed an OS first.

[Player0]

Hmm, yeah, I figgured the majority would vote for CD-RW.

I actually chose (before I posted this poll that is) the Zip 750 option. The drive cost about $90, and the media is about $10 a disk. Versus about $80 for an okay CD-RW drive and $2.50 per media. So the Zip is right about the same cost as the CD-RW, especially if you consider that you can write many more times to a Zip disk than you can to a CD-RW.

CD-RWs are more prone to errors each time you rewrite to them. Not to mention scratches. Even CDs I try to baby end up with scratches on them. CD-RW media is even more prone to scratches than regular CDs.

Zip media has a very hard and protective shell. It actually has more record room than a CD-RW, and you can rewrite to it probably 10-100x more than you can reliably rewrite cd-rw media. PS: CD-R media doesn't fit the bill at all because we want to have nightly updates. It would be a CD-R per day to use that kind of media.

The only downside to Zip media is really magnetic problems. You'd really have to place it right on a magnet though to really screw it up. Ive left Zip 250 disks on top of pcs and monitors and under piles of other disks and i've never lost data on a zip disk. Ever.

For long term storage, a CD-R would probably be better, but since we just need to keep backups for a month or two, I really like the Zip solution. The speed is great. Im not sure how to compare it to CD-RW speed, but it should be about the same in terms of write time. Installation was an absolute breeze. Connect the IDE cable, power up the box...NT2000 recognized the drive instantly. Installed the driver CD and everything was there. The Iomega software suites have always been good, and the backup software installed and I configured it in under 10 minutes for my needs :)

Not to say that CD-RW isnt a good option either. In fact, I probably could have just as easily have gotten a CD-RW burner to do this. But i wanted to try something different for this box :) Seems to work out well.

[bigg]

I use CD-RW because I have acces to a drive and disks. If I could do anything I wanted, I would backup to a network server connected via GoC (desktops too!!!). This is the best way to not have to divy up data. With my pictures, I use DSCfiles1, DSC files2, etc... each about 600MB) so that I can eaisily back them up. I have 7 of them so far, and 5 of those are on CD only (5 CDs and two brands each, because I don't trust CDs very much.)

[Kabooka]

I do the cd rw - and use a program called "NTI Backup NOW!" makes scheduled backups a breeze. And someday when I'm rich and famous I'll own a DVD RW to get more of my "stuff" backed up