BizTalk Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 (edited) While I need to buy some more dvd blanks, I dont think DVD's are the awnser. Edited June 18, 2006 by BizTalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubar Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 buy another HDD. A 120GB drive only cost about £30 in the uk now. Cheap as chips Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delprat Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 Buy a harddisk...I don't think you'll find a smaller ("physically" speaking) way to backup 50GB++ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitroshift Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 buy another HDD. A 120GB drive only cost about £30 in the uk now. Cheap as chips/me agrees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ripken204 Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....rice=&maxPrice=just as they all said, its under 50$ for an 80gig hdd. or if you really wanted to, copy the files across a home network to another computer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathwarder Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 just buy a big external drive and put it in a drawer, much cheaper than dvd's, dvd's are about .25cents to the gig or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bledd Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 just buy a big external drive and put it in a drawer, much cheaper than dvd's, dvd's are about .25cents to the gig or something.and dvd's take a lot more managing and a hell of a lot of time, an extra hard drive is a must tbh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maleko Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 Im going with everyone else as well, hard drive, personally an external one would be good, the New WD MyBook hard drives are sweet and cheap. they also turn off when you shut your computer down! (unlike other powered external drives) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DL. Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 I totally agree with the others on getting one more HDD.The difference in price between HDD:s is quite small nowadays, it's often better to buy a larger drive in order to be more future proof.You could get a drive of the same size (preferably the same make/model) as the one you already have and use some disk cloning software (there are free ones) to simply mirror the disk on a regular basis. It will spare you of some manual file copying and thereby simplifying the whole backup procedure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeMSFN Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 (edited) I can't recommend a hard drive to backup a hard drive.The reason you're backing up your files (I assume), is because you're worried about your HD crashing. If you're worried about your HD crashing, why would you backup data to another one? If you have a lot of data, blue ray and HD DVDs are soon (if not already) to be released.I assume the media would be kinda pricey , but there should be a RW version of it. OK, it would take two discs. That's far better than the current DVD capacity of 4.7 gig. (When did DVDs become low capacity?)If you are going the HD route, I would recommend a RAID. If your mobo doesn't support it, get a card.Make sure you install the RAID monitoring and alerting software. Edited June 19, 2006 by JoeMSFN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hougtimo Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 I have a spare 80gb drive, then use acronis true image to pack all my data up onto it (including the os). a full reformatt is never more then 4mins and 32secs away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fillalph Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 If you have a lot of data, blue ray and HD DVDs are soon (if not already) to be released.I assume the media would be kinda pricey , but there should be a RW version of it. OK, it would take two discs. That's far better than the current DVD capacity of 4.7 gig. (When did DVDs become low capacity?)I think that the HD DVD and Blue Ray readers are approximately 500US and 1000US respectively. So, I don't think this is the "best way" to backup 50GB at the moment. Perhaps in 2 years or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DL. Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 @JoeMSFN:Backing up a HD to another HD is a way of spreading the risk. It's cheaper, faster and easier to manage than large numbers of DVD:s.HD-DVD and/or Blue-Ray will probably be viable solutions in the future, but it will most likely take a while until the prices have come down to more acceptable levels.A RAID solution (both drives connected and running all the time) is more sensitive to failure caused by other hardware (PSU, MB etc), compared to using an extra HD which is offline most of the time and connected only when doing backups.Do occasional backups of important data to DVD even if using an extra HD or RAID, since HD:s are more likely to fail (or data get corrupted). Data on DVD:s are "solid" and cannot be deleted, corrupted or affected by ESD, unless of course they are physically damaged/worn or aged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoffeeFiend Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 Making backups of large amounts of data is a PITA... Current optical discs are way too small. A backup of a single 200GB drive is getting close to a full spindle of DVDs... No matter how cheap the plastic could be, that's just too much discs to swap - to create new backups every now and then (wasting a spindle every couple of months? no thanks!) and to restore if you ever need to. Too time consuming. The main option I see is more HDs. RAID0 is indeed a bit risky for data you can't afford to lose. RAID1 (mirrorred pair of HDs) would be secure, but halving your space sucks... So ideally you go for RAID5. Four 300GB SATA drives is not a whole lot of $ anymore (in some places the 400GBs are becoming cheap, but here they still cost as much as two 300GBs for one). One drive for parity, the other for data, so 4x 300GB would give you 900GB of pretty safe storage (any one drive can die and your data's safe). Including a 4 port SATA controller and tax and all, it should still be around 50 cents/GB. Preferably on UPS or at least a good surge supressor (don't wanna fry all drives if something happens). More of a "safe storage" thing than a backup really... Works great for my video server (all in mpeg4 - same deal for music collection). No worries of losing everything, but even if something happened, it's not the end of the world either.The other popular option is backing up on a external drive. Lots of people like this. But I'm not big on it... The drives are no cheaper than in the RAID5 scenario, and the enclosures only add to the cost (and most cheap enclosures suck and will die of heat - especially those with without fans - I'll link to some reviews if you need some "evidence" of that - I've given up on RMA'ing mine for another one that would last a whole month). And you gotta find a place to put all the external drives eventually... Which are also more prone to be dropped or something (from being manipulated/handled more). Either ways, it's far more convenient than swapping discs all day every month or whatever (50 discs x 10 minutes each or more) - just need to start copying files (a few seconds) or it can even be completely automated - no need to even worry about it anymore.Personally, I take the risk of leaving everything on RAID5. It's not ridiculously expensive anymore for lots of space. You get fast speeds, it's always online and all. For the few things that just CAN'T be lost, then those are kept on a smaller RAID1 from two smaller HDs (think family photos), and are also burnt on 3 taiyo yuden DVDs (two for me, and one "off-site" i.e. sent to my dad - he likes to have them too, and also for in case of fire). Taiyo Yuden are good discs. Don't use cheap stuff for important backups, you'll regret it the day you need it (things like organic dye and cheap manufacturing quality will have likely destroyed the data partly - seen it happen so many times)HD DVD/Blu-Ray/Holographic isn't there yet. Writers @ 1000$ and 25GB blanks for 60$/ea? No thanks! That's FAR more $/GB than any HD will cost you (would you buy a 25GB HD for 60$? me neither). Transfer speeds are still slow-ish. You'll still have to swap discs (backuping a 200GB drive with 25GB discs is "only" 8 discs - now, backuping several RAID arrays i.e. > 1TB? Spindles of 'em... They're not keeping up with HD size increases... And scratching/losing one disc will mean losing tons of information (kinda scary). Price isn't there and won't be for a while, and you'll still end up swapping discs. No thanks.DL: I disagree. HDs are far less likely to be corrupted (optical discs need error correction bits - not a perfect process by any measure). Magnetic storage is far more stable. DVDs aren't so "solid" unless they're pressed (pits and lands vs altered dye). Dye problems, light/atm pressure/humidity/etc, imperfect manufacturing, reflective top layer lifting off, you name it - it'll scrap your discs (I've seen hundreds of discs that "turned bad" over time - kept in a CD wallet in a cool place, no scratches or anything, and not cheapest brand either). And DVDs are very easy to scratch - a very common occurence of data loss... I'll take HDs over DVDs anytime. And over the years, I've never seen a single HD die because of a PSU problem or such - not even once, and we've got thousands of PCs at work... You're more likely to just drop an external HD on the floor instead.My 2 cents... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innocent Devil Posted June 20, 2006 Share Posted June 20, 2006 as JoeMSFN just WAIT for Blue-Ray and go 4 dual layer blue-ray it allows 54GB in one disc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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