Backing Up in Traffic

Carl, just a word of warning.

Writable DVD's & CD's don't last forever.  Not all of them will degrade.  But you don't know which ones will, and inevitably it's the ones that you need right now.

I've found that the cheap, no name ones start going after a year or two.  The name brand ones, such as Fuji, Maxell a bit longer.  But they certainly don't last forever, as was originally hyped.  And the rewritable ones don't last as long as the pure writable ones.

You're probably better off getting a larger hard drive (I'd recommend 2 TB, as they're cheap, not that much more expensive than the 1 TB ones, and they're recognized by virtually all Windows systems - you need 64 bit XP or Vista and above system to use 3 TB+ drives.  I believe that Mac OS supports 3 TB+ drives as well.

You can use the larger drive for backup purposes, and your smaller one for production.

Ideally, you'd replace the smaller, 500GB one with a drive of the same capacity to the new one, and essentially keep an identical backup on the other.  If or when one fails, you can just use the other.  However, that adds complexity in terms of installing whatever operating system you're using, making the other one bootable, etc.

But, bottom line, I wouldn't keep important information on writable CD's or DVD's, period.  At least the only copy, in any event.  [From someone who has learned this the hard way]

The warning from Artisan has hit home. I agree in particular that recordable discs were over-rated in the beginning, and are often defective right away, or in the future.

In fact, for the past 24-hours I've been messing with a DVD that reports a string of READ ERRORS, and I'm having some fun educating myself on the art of Disc Burning and all the "verification" tools. Right now it's just "fun with computer toys," but eventually, here's what we will do...

AS A DIRECT RESULT of Artisan's advice I will in fact order another large hard-drive and backup everything.

Along side that serious backup I will also cram all these previously never-used discs full of backup-backups, to satisfy the sense of "getting my money's worth."

Artisan gives excellent advice.

Previously, he recommended the software called "VIRTUAL CABLE" as the solution for a different problem, and it was perfect.

Artisan is a Charter Member of the ALPB and invites you to contact MRAM 1500 for TeamSpeak instructions so you can also be a Member.

ADDED INFO:

The DVDs are "Verbatim" brand, good or cheap? Anyone know? The vendor back in the 90s was a large bulk supplier for the duplication professional market, but that may just amount to window dressing. 

Have been using Verbatim, Phillips, and Sony DVDs with no issues.

Using a large hard drive for backup is a good idea and the cost per gigabyte is about the same or less than DVDs. I have been doing this for a few years now with success.

It is a good idea to keep the disc physically separate from your everyday computer in case of a destructive virus or some hardware problem which could take out the backup disc. My backup is installed in an older computer which has a clean load of Windows and is not connected to the internet. The files to back up are transferred via the local LAN.

Another option is to use a USB connection for the disc. Be mindful that if you drop a portable disc it will most likely be unusable. Also, write errors can lock a disc so this is not failure proof.

My absolutely can't loose information is double backed using a third hard drive. This way I never have the source disc and all of the backup discs running at the same time. One of the backups is always safely tucked away in a cabinet.

If you use backup software to create the backups make sure you can do a restore if needed. I once purchased an expensive backup package from Norton which wrote out just fine but would not restore. I found this out the hard way after a disc crash. Always test to make sure.

Another thing I do is keep the operating system on a small (250GB) disc as disc C: and my data on a large disc D:. The two can then be backed up separately and restoring a crashed system or lost data is made easier.

Neil

Middle of the road, in my opinion.

I've had excellent success with TDK DVD's and Fuji CD's, so much so that they're all I use for critical material.  I've also had success with Maxell.

But unfortunately, there's a caveat here as well.  It's not only the media that matters, but the dvd/cd writer itself.  Some won't use certain brands, or have problems with them.  If a relatively large number of the disks you burn turn out bad, you can always try another brand.

Trial and error.  What Part 15 is all about.

Neil made a great suggestion about separating your operating system and data disks.  The reason it's advisable to do that is that the O/S hard drive gets a lot (and I do mean a lot) of use, particularly if you're limited on memory, and it's the one likely to crash and burn.  I've probably lost 3 system drives over the last 6 to 7 years (on multiple computers, I usually have 4-6 running at any one point in time), but absolutely no data drives.

If you have to replace a system drive and there's no huge amounts of data on it, the restore is a lot faster and smoother, and you'll have your station up a lot quicker.

And I've even moved to USB sticks for my playlists on my production computer.  64GB is more than enough space for holding the thousands of songs that I have on each playlist.

Flash Drive.

I have decent success with "archival" DVD media, such as those from Delkin Devices. The claim is for 100-300 years of intact storage. All we need now is a *device* that can play them back in 300 years and someone who knows how to do so.

Ever show a 17-year-old kid a player piano roll? That's good for an hour of entertainment.

Yes, Annandale Terrace, the disc technology is already feeling old, as it's been over ten years since we did a lot of CD and DVD duplication, and I still have a duplication "tower," consisting of a playback drive and a copy drive.

Also, we have a Pioneer DVD Video Recorder, which explains all these ReWritables which were used to pretend "TIVO" and record TV shows for later viewing.

Just now I ran an experiment to see if I could record audio in real-time to the Disc Drive on the computer, and it doesn't seem to work.

Flash Drive sounds good, maybe our "Thumb Drive" is a Flash Drive, I have no benefit of facts.

Thumb drive is a flash drive meaning flash memory.

I'm kind of a super anal saver of data.  Stuff I really want to save I back up to two different brands of DVD, and also to a large externalhard drive. As a Mac user, I also take advantage of their Time Machine software that comes with the computers.  Plug in an external drive and back up the machine.  Let it do it automatically as you like, or whatever.  Neat thing is, if you say, accidentally delete something you wanted, you can use your time machine drive to go back an hour, a day, a month, whatever, and recreate.  So, I backup regularly with that to a portable drive as well, which I then keep AWAY from my home/studio/office.  What good is a backup if it burns down with the house?  I have a daughter who works in video production for Best Buy and she's a very intense computer user, and has a lot of work on her machine.  When she comes home to visit I always do a Time Machine back up of her Macbook Pro and keep the drive here (she lives three hours away)... just in case.  Sure enough two years ago there was a fire.  Her laptop wasn't actually burned up, but was filled with large amounts of water, soot and smoke.  Amazingly enough the computer started up and was sort of useable but as you can imagine had a lot of issues.  The insurance company paid promptly for a replacement computer.  We plugged in the Time Machine backup to the nes machine, it asked us if we wanted to restore from it, we said yup, and a little while later the brand new machine was exactly like her pre-fire machine.  Every file, every piece of software, every item on the desktop.  It literally reloaded her new computer to be exactly like her previous one.  This would not have been possible if the backup was also in the house!  Back up, and keep it someplace else!

I can't say that I've had any burned CD's or DVD's go bad on me.  I have some audio CD's I made 12 or 15 years ago that still play perfect.  As I recall they're on Kodak blanks.

This new technology stuff has really been a boon to manufacturers.  I have phonograph records back over 100 years ago, and family photos from the late 1800's, negatives and movies from the 30's on up, all in perfect condition that have never needed to be backed up.  Now, we're all cursed with constant backups and updating to current formats, constantly buying new stuff.

Oh, and FWIW if there's a fire, unless it's a total loss in fire damage, MOST of the damage actually comes from WATER used to put out the fire. You can't imagine the water damage until you have to redo a fire house, where every piece of sheetrock, carpeting, etc has to be removed and redone. 

Tim in Bovey

As I continue playing with disc backup, a question pops up that I cannot answer by rummaging through my CD/DVD File Folders.

It happens that there are two different ways to save .mp3 files: they can be saved as "Data" or as "MP3 Files." Is one of these choices better than the other for backup storage? What actually is the difference between these different ways of doing it?

Kook forward to the knowledge that part15.us makes available.

Join the ALPB.

Either is fine.

Question # 1 - How TIME accurate is hard-drive audio playback of audiofiles?

Question # 2 - What is a NEW name for the old fashioned disc jockey?

First, Question 1 - When I add up all the timings of (for example) 12-hours worth of mp3 files in the playlist, the resulting playback is rarely what my addition shows. The playlist sometimes comes out early, other times late. Therefore I suspect that hard-drives are not time-accurate over a long period. What do you know about this hunch?

Next, Question 2 - In the days when we tossed and cued vinyl discs like slabs of pancake we were known as disc jockeys. But now the "disc" is inside a sealed harddrive and all we do is introduce songs that only require the touch of a button or are automated. Are we "Disc Greeters"? What is our modern-day title?

Answer to #2: Appliance Operators