[geeks] Best media for personal long-term backup?

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Feb 28, 2009, at 12:16 , Nate wrote:

>> It is a lot better, and people have tested it pretty extensively.   
>> DVD+R and DVD-R have been extensively compared and there is no  
>> contest here: +R is superior to the point it is worth paying twice  
>> as much if you have to.
>
> Well Taiyo Yuden 8x DVD+R media is only $0.36 a disc, so I wouldn't  
> be breaking the bank by buying it... whereas 12x DVD-RAM media  
> (Maxell DRM47D.1P) is $15 a disc!

Where did you find them at that price?

Yeah, DVD-RAM never caught on.  I think Blu-Ray is going to be the  
same thing.

> You mean Lite-On drives with the KProbe software?
>
> http://kprobe.cdfreaks.com/
>
> Or something else?

Something else probably.  The last time I messed with that sort of  
thing I'm pretty sure it was a Plextor burner and media tester.

>> Go further and actually test aging and damage, and -R falls pretty  
>> flat, unable to recover from fairly normal kinds of damage, and  
>> poor burns.
>
> What about Taiyo Yuden DVD+R vs. Taiyo Yuden CD-R?  Which will be  
> more reliable long-term do you think?

CD-R is not very reliable in my experience.  I have a lot of stuff on  
CD, and a certain percentage of it is dead, including gold media,  
Taiyo, and the Verbatim (the original Japanese, not the stuff now made  
in India).  Obviously some of that is likely due to drives that were  
not great.  It seems that CD burners were more of a crapshoot than DVD  
burners.

I found with CD-R that if I wanted it to last, I need to do burns at  
no more than half the speed of drive, on good quality drives.

Going to lower speeds also seems to help DVD, though not quite as much.

I would say DVD+R is going to be quite a bit better based on it being  
better technology and having things like better signal and error  
handling.  DVD-R does have one advantage though: it still works on  
more non-computer drives, if that matters to you.  I suspect that  
advantage will start going away if has not already.

I think what worries me most now is that we live in an age of extreme  
cost cutting, and most of the major media production has moved to  
India and Thailand, and the quality has dropped as a result.  TDK, for  
example, was great when it was made in Japan, and now it isn't near as  
good.

Verbatim also moved production, but it seems to not have dropped as  
much in quality.

Of course, if I can find a good source for Taiyo Yuden, I might not  
care.

Drives: I seem to have the best luck with NEC and Toshiba DVD burners,  
but you really need to update the firmware on them, and even consider  
some of the hacks which can improve signal quality.  Don't just go for  
firmware that promises more speed, it's better writing and better  
media databases that you really want from firmware updates.

If you have a Mac, updating firmware is painful.  I have to move my  
DVD burners to my Windows box to update them, because I've never  
managed to get the Mac firmware writers for NEC and Toshiba to work.

>> DVD is far too small, and the burn process sucks.
>
> Considering the backups I'm re-burning are coming off of CD-R, DVD  
> sized media will be more than enough for me.

Yeah... and you remind me that I need to read my old CD backups and re- 
burn them to DVD as well.  Yet another task added to my pile.

But for normal backups, I often need to span several dual-layer DVDs,  
and the whole process really sucks.

The cheapest decent tape drives are too expensive: LTO-2 at $25 per  
200GB, and I think the drives are nearly $1000.

> Agreed, though I understand the surface polymer formulation (at  
> least for pressed media - not sure about recordable media) has a  
> very high scratch resistance, and was one of the big pros over HD- 
> DVD (and CD/DVD).

True... but even 50GB dual-layer is really not a big improvement  
compared to the amount of data on a typical machine today, even a  
personal machine.

A lot of people are saying that online video rental is going to kill  
the market for Blu-Ray before it even starts, so the media won't fall  
in price.


-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."