DVDs vs external Hard Drives

[Ron Cliborn]

I back up a fairly large amount of Data each year, around 2 to 3
terabytes.
In the past I have backed it up to DVD's and in the past 10 years I
had maybe 5 discs go bad, all the same brand.

Now with the inexpensive external hard drives out, I was thinking of
using them to back up my data. I was wondering how long an external
HD (eHD) would last compared to a DVD.

I realize that anything with moving parts will fail at some point but
I'm trying to weight what is best a DVD or eHD for backing up data.
If the data is extremely sensitive, it would be no problem to use both
and or any other option.

Discs can and do get scratched, broken, lost and misplaced.
There is the significant amount of time involved in burning 3TB to
DVD's.
eHD's seem like a better option. An eHD that hold 500 GB is not all
that much more then the # of DVD's required to hold that amount of
info, and the time savings are significant.

What would one look for, the MTBF for DVD's vs eHD's?

I would like to see what others thought about this. Or maybe their is
a better, cheaper and speeder option for doing this that I don't know
about.

If the Gurus in this group would be so kind as to help me with this
I'd be forever grateful. Any opinions or comments welcomed.

It would just seem better to me to have a eHD dedicated to holding
certain information.....to make it relevant to all, say 1 eHD
dedicated to each of the following:
---Family Picture
---Family Videos
---Family Documents
---Music
---Movies

What do you all think about this?

Thank you
Ron-E-C
"Give me 10 and the do it again!"

 

[Paul]

I back up a fairly large amount of Data each year, around 2 to 3
terabytes.
In the past I have backed it up to DVD's and in the past 10 years I
had maybe 5 discs go bad, all the same brand.

Now with the inexpensive external hard drives out, I was thinking of
using them to back up my data. I was wondering how long an external
HD (eHD) would last compared to a DVD.

I realize that anything with moving parts will fail at some point but
I'm trying to weight what is best a DVD or eHD for backing up data.
If the data is extremely sensitive, it would be no problem to use both
and or any other option.

Discs can and do get scratched, broken, lost and misplaced.
There is the significant amount of time involved in burning 3TB to
DVD's.
eHD's seem like a better option. An eHD that hold 500 GB is not all
that much more then the # of DVD's required to hold that amount of
info, and the time savings are significant.

What would one look for, the MTBF for DVD's vs eHD's?

I would like to see what others thought about this. Or maybe their is
a better, cheaper and speeder option for doing this that I don't know
about.

If the Gurus in this group would be so kind as to help me with this
I'd be forever grateful. Any opinions or comments welcomed.

It would just seem better to me to have a eHD dedicated to holding
certain information.....to make it relevant to all, say 1 eHD
dedicated to each of the following:
---Family Picture
---Family Videos
---Family Documents
---Music
---Movies

What do you all think about this?

Thank you
Ron-E-C
"Give me 10 and the do it again!"

There is nothing preventing you from using both, with different
frequencies of backups.

Paul

 

[NT]

I back up a fairly large amount of Data each year, around 2 to 3
terabytes.
In the past I have backed it up to DVD's and in the past 10 years I
had maybe 5 discs go bad, all the same brand.

Now with the inexpensive external hard drives out, I was thinking of
using them to back up my data.  I was wondering how long an external
HD (eHD) would last compared to a DVD.

I realize that anything with moving parts will fail at some point but
I'm trying to weight what is best a DVD or eHD for backing up data.
If the data is extremely sensitive, it would be no problem to use both
and or any other option.

Discs can and do get scratched, broken, lost and misplaced.
There is the significant amount of time involved in burning 3TB to
DVD's.
eHD's seem like a better option.  An eHD that hold 500 GB is not all
that much more then the # of DVD's required to hold that amount of
info, and the time savings are significant.

What would one look for, the MTBF for DVD's vs eHD's?

I would like to see what others thought about this.  Or maybe their is
a better, cheaper and speeder option for doing this that I don't know
about.

If the Gurus in this group would be so kind as to help me with this
I'd be forever grateful.  Any opinions or comments welcomed.

It would just seem better to me to have a eHD dedicated to holding
certain information.....to make it relevant to all, say 1 eHD
dedicated to each of the following:
---Family Picture
---Family Videos
---Family Documents
---Music
---Movies

What do you all think about this?

Thank you
Ron-E-C
"Give me 10 and the do it again!"

I switched backing up from dvd to hdd, and there's just no comparison
in terms of media reliability and ease of use. I would barely
contemplate going back to dvds now.

1 yr sounds like a perilously long time, and if one backup fails you'd
restore from a copy upto 2 yrs old. Thats not much use. Sounds like
you need afr more frequent backups. Bear in mind that
a) hdds can be reused as often as you like
b) a hdd can hold more than one backup, ie as well as backing up today
it can still retain the last backup to be writen to it.
c) You need a minimum of 2x hdds, as failures occur with hdds too.
d) using internal hdds is much faster & cheaper, and it only takes a
minute or 2 to hook the thing up and remove it.
e) dont forget to keep at least one offfsite backup.


NT

 

[Paul]

For backups I use a Thermaltake BlacX, and 2.5" WD Scorpio
500GB drives. The advantage of laptop drives is that they are
a lot smaller, and more rugged for handling. The only issue
with long term HD storage might be stiction, (seized platters),
but spinning up a drive periodically should prevent that.

The BlacX is one of the more useful peripheral gadgets I
have. I have the USB2 & eSATA model, (ST0005U). I see
they have a new model that takes 2 drives. Also, with the
BlacX, drives are running in open air, so there's little heat
issue, especially with 2.5" drives.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1346

With regard to stiction, at least some products use a
landing ramp for the head assembly. So the heads don't
necessarily always rest on the platter surface, when the
drive is not used. On a drive with a landing ramp, the
heads don't load, until the platter is up to speed. (In
this picture, the orange thing appears to be the landing
ramp. Note that Newegg uses these images at random, with
the same image used for different brands of products.)

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/22-136-129-03.jpg

(There is a picture on page three here, of the landing ramp
and lift tab.)

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/tech...5825FB/$file/LoadUnload_white_paper_FINAL.pdf

Something that has always puzzled me, is what happens if
lift tab scrapes debris off the plastic ramp.

The head assembly is rated for 50,000 start/stop cycles, to give
some idea of the minimum number of cycles the manufacturer
supports. So you're supposed to be able to go up and down that
ramp, a lot.

The lubricant is different than it used to be. It is only
0.5 to 2 nm thick.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/storage/im/index.html

Paul