George Waring wrote:
At 02:03 PM 5/10/2001, David Freeman wrote:
All,
I am thinking it may be a good time to start thinking about backing up the data on my HDD. I am after a cheap method and I though about getting a CDRW drive now they are sub £100. Is this a good idea?
Personally, I think it's a great idea. I do it all the time.
just a few pointers on this.. this may be obvious to some, please set flame position/ patronisation level to low ;)
If you are going to backup to CDRW, then be aware that a CDRW can only be written to a certain number of times (is it 50-100 can't remember which) then the chemicals degrade and it starts to loose data. A friend was doing exactly this a while ago, when he went to recover some data, the CD was corrypt. This leads me onto my second note... I curently backup onto DAT, I've used Travan drives, CDRW in the past.. all are good methods ONLY if you verify the backup !! yes it does take longer, yes it does munch extra CPU cycles, but beleive me, the effort is worth it... also, keep two or three copies and rotate the backup's, preferable keep them in seperate physical places. I keep a copy of my data round my parents (30 miles away!).. if my house gets hit by a bomb I still have my data (but no machine to read teh tapes in!)...
I know this may sound over the top, but you have to weigh up how important your data is, if your life/buisness goes down the pan because of a fire, then it may be worth investing a little time in setting up a decent backup/recovery plan..
btw, verification can be done very easily and quickly with md5 checksums... (yeah I know md5 is not infalable, but it's pretty darn close!)...
Sz