Back UPs onto DVDs?????

[aristottle]

One of the reasons that I bought a DVD burner 18 months ago was so I could backup information and programs on my desktop.

In a thread below a few posters indicated that DVDs were a poor choice for media for backing up information. ( I burn mostly DVD+R single layer media)

Why is that the case? What works better.....other than another hard drive?

BTW.....what is the best program for backing up a hard drive....say 40gigs worth of info?

Thanks

[jberry]

40 gigs? hard drive is best....will need 10 blank dvds to fill.....get a DVD-RAM burner if you do not want a hard drive

[Joker]

If that is data, or program files, and not compressed archive files (like Zip or RAR) or files that are not readily compressable, like graphics, you might get about 40-50% compression rate, so it wouldn't take that many discs. If you have the hard drive space, it would probably be better to image to file rather than DVD, breaking the archive up into DVD sized chunks, and burning them to DVD seperately. That would be better than having the burn continually stop as the write buffer empties while the system compresses files for the image.

Joker

[aristottle]

My question is why "wouldn't" dvd media be good to store data on?

Are they more likely to become unreadable than other types of media?

In a thread below one poster suggested that DVD should only be used as 4th or 5th level of back ups?

I am interested in why this should be the case?

[bob11879]

DVD is perfectly suitable for backups, if you use good quality media to start with and store them in a cool dark spot. You can use Ghost or other such programs to "image" your drive. The only drawback is when you restore, you're going to have an image of the way it "was", not necessarily the way it was when it crashed for the final time. If you do incremental back up with Retrospect or some similar program you'll stay more current. You make a backup of your data and then do a daily or weekly incremental, recording only those things that have changed.

[ETP]

All good advice!

Just back up your files not programs! You need to do a clean format and install if you have a serious problem. DVDs are perfect for backing up large files. I do it all the time.
Burn away!