Most Reliable Backup/storage media

[iceangel89]

after trying to backup all data some from HDD,CD,DVD to a external HDD, i get tons of errors here and there like for 1 of my DVD, it says

Cannot copy file or folder

...MS-DOS Error

after some googling, i found out i can use Extract feature of ISO Buster, worked but it produced many

Sector could not be read

what i did was use tons of alcohol, to clean the disk & disk drive everytime the error came out and finally it worked. all data backed up.

so whats the best media to backup data? i like HDDs for the size & speed to gives but it spoils more easily than DVDs? but DVD is too small ... and tape? not really for me isit? i am a 18 yr old home user

[nmX.Memnoch]

DVDs should be fine if you're not using cheap media. I typically use Verbatim or Memorex. External hard drives can be a good solution as well.

Remember, no single solution is completely safe. It's best to use a combination (i.e. both DVDs and an external drive).

[iceangel89]

i am using memorex & imation so shld be all right, the prob with DVDs are the time to burn, lower speeds are more relaible but the waiting time ...zzz also i am limited to 4GBs on regular DVDs i am using... i currently have lots of DVDs and its troublesome to find which DVD has what i want and keep changing DVDs. HDDs allow me to plug it in and access lots of files at once at faster speeds...

[hmaster10]

lower speeds are more relaible

Is that statement true? ****, if it is... oh well, if I only knew... all my DVD are high speed (16x).

[iceangel89]

what i mean is burn at lower speeds when u burn at fast speeds i guess more chance of errors

[ripken204]

what i mean is burn at lower speeds when u burn at fast speeds i guess more chance of errors

definitely. i always burn my dvds at 8x just b/c i dont want something to mess up. it only takes ~8min at 8x so i could care less.

Edited August 22, 2007 by ripken204

[nmX.Memnoch]

I've never had any problems with the quality of my burns and I burn 'em all at 16x (48x for CDs). Again, good quality media paired with a good quality burner goes a long way.

iceangel89: What I meant about using both an external hard drive and DVDs is that the external hard drive would be your primary backup means. The DVDs would be a backup to that...and even at that I would only burn the most important stuff that I absolutely couldn't lose (family pictures, documents, etc). That's the cheaper method anyway.

[puntoMX]

Same here, DVDs at 18x CAV (6 minutes). I burn a backup of 4.3GB every 2 weeks or so, and save a new project on an extra copy.

[Zxian]

I also try to burn the very important data to DVDs, but the problem I've got is with incremental backups. There's no point in having the same data on all your DVDs you've burned for the past 6 months. Multi-session discs are a no go as well, since the overhead is usually comparable to the amount of data I need to backup.

Anyone have any solutions for this?

[nmX.Memnoch]

Anyone have any solutions for this?

Tapes or a comparable equivalent. What I mean by "equivalent" is something like the Dell PowerVault RD1000. As I understand it, it can be made to act like a tape drive for doing incremental backups...but accessing it is much faster. They have an internal version as well so it can be attached directly to a SATA controller, although I'm not sure if the internal version is available for direct purchase (as opposed to purchasing with a server). Additionally, you can purchase extra drive cartridges.

A lot of backup hardware makers are starting to offer hard drive based backup solutions because they're cheaper, faster and more reliable than ever.

You can also use a utility like XXCopy (eXtended XCopy). I use that for backup purposes. With the right switches it'll make your source and destination match perfectly...right down to file attributes, security permissions and audit settings.

Edited August 22, 2007 by nmX.Memnoch

[Zxian]

Did you purchase XXCopy? I had it running as a schedule task to run the backups, but they never actually got to work, since I got the "this is only for testing purposes, blah blah blah".

[puntoMX]

A lot of backup hardware makers are starting to offer hard drive based backup solutions because they're cheaper, faster and more reliable than ever.

That’s what I would say, especially with a nice fileserver like Zxian has.

@ Zxian,

I use "overlapping" backups so if a backup is damaged I can go back to an older one. Of course, this is only for not update/modified files... DVDs with the session kept open are not accepted by all DVD-optical drives so indeed no go.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Did you purchase XXCopy? I had it running as a schedule task to run the backups, but they never actually got to work, since I got the "this is only for testing purposes, blah blah blah".

Yes, we have 20 licenses at work. But I didn't think the freeware version gave you any warning flags unless you were accessing a network share? It's been a whiiiiiiiile since I messed with the freeware version though.

You might be able to pipe a key input to the command line. Something like:

echo Y|xxcopy.exe source destination /switch1 /switch2 /switch3 /etc

[Zxian]

Considering that all my backups are going to my network share (I think XXCopy even detects network drives), I get the warning flag.

I'll have to try the piping though...

[nmX.Memnoch]

XXCopy does detect network drives. The full version doesn't give you any flags though, it just processes the command without stopping.

The freeware version throws all sorts of flags. I'll try to give it a look tonight to see if piping the ECHO to it works.