Decent Price on a 2TB hard drive for $115

[drozwood90]

I use a 1TB drive to make complete backups of all my data for each of my computers. Once I back them up I physically disconnect and put the 1TB backup on the shelf. I also store copies of various programs along with prior versions of the software in case I need to return to an older version.

Good idea. I do this...kind of. I two drives in my server with a directory For Install that's shared out only to an install user name. I keep all that stuff in there. When the directory gets too full (I.e. I get tired of it having too much stuff...as I've not gone over having 147GB free on that drive), I just burn everything off.

When I burn, I make sure that I have enough stuff to fill 3 discs. Be it CD-Rs or DVD+Rs. Then I use quickpar to basically "replicate" what RAID5 does. So, each "set" has 4 discs to it, where I can loose up to 1 whole Disc without issue.

It's not really raid5, but closer to raid3, now that I think about it. The "XOR" type data does NOT exist on all discs, only the 4th. So, I can loose one disc and be able to reconstruct most of the 4th.

It's all a gamble...

--Dan

 

[sic0048]

......When the directory gets too full (I.e. I get tired of it having too much stuff...as I've not gone over having 147GB free on that drive), I just burn everything off.

When I burn, I make sure that I have enough stuff to fill 3 discs. Be it CD-Rs or DVD+Rs. Then I use quickpar to basically "replicate" what RAID5 does. So, each "set" has 4 discs to it, where I can loose up to 1 whole Disc without issue.

It's not really raid5, but closer to raid3, now that I think about it. The "XOR" type data does NOT exist on all discs, only the 4th. So, I can loose one disc and be able to reconstruct most of the 4th.

It's all a gamble...

--Dan

I didn't know you could do something like that. That is pretty cool and does help to allay one of my greatest concerns about using burned DVD media as backup storage - their long term reliability is being questioned (google DVD rot). Of course, if the backups are designed for short to medium term usage, then rot doesn't even play a factor. I'm just not sure I'm comfortable archiving a lifetime of pictures and documents on recordable DVDs that may or may not last 5-10 years. Of course I'm not sure there is a perfect solution either. Every option seems to have its own Pros and Cons.

As you said "It's all a gamble...."

 

[beelzerob]

Oh, it's way past time for external permanent storage to come to the next level. Right now, burning DVD's is the only practical/affordable method for that, and camera's/camcorders far outstrip what those can hold. Even burnable bluray isn't the answer, just a (very expensive right now) bandaid.

 

[drozwood90]

Yeah, my plan is to use ISO buster to try to strip off whatever files I can from the bad disc, then use whatever files I can from the parity data to try to reconstruct them.

--Dan