Stupid Question 1 - DVDs

[Mumble]

I did say in another thread that I was going to be bombarding you with silly questions . . . Now this, and silly question 2, both relate to the fact that I can work computers fine, but I have no idea about the technical doodahs behind them.

 

I'm trying to do back up disks (particularly as my laptop is playing up) of all my work. I've done this into CD-RW disks which is fine, but my work is now spread across several disks because it kept telling me they were full and to insert another disk (I have a lot of scanned images, photos and diagrams in my work so the files can be quite big as well as digital WAV voice recordings). This means that if I now update my work, I can't save the updated version to these disks because they are already full which is really annoying.

 

If I buy DVD-RW disks instead, will I be able to put more on each disk?

 

Is there anything else I could buy to store a copy of everything? I use a 2GB memory stick to take things back and forth to uni - are these reliable to store things long term?

 

Also (and this is probably a really silly question) - can digital files 'wear out' in the same way as CDs and tapes through over playing?

[flipper]

I did say in another thread that I was going to be bombarding you with silly questions . . . Now this, and silly question 2, both relate to the fact that I can work computers fine, but I have no idea about the technical doodahs behind them.

 

I'm trying to do back up disks (particularly as my laptop is playing up) of all my work. I've done this into CD-RW disks which is fine, but my work is now spread across several disks because it kept telling me they were full and to insert another disk (I have a lot of scanned images, photos and diagrams in my work so the files can be quite big as well as digital WAV voice recordings). This means that if I now update my work, I can't save the updated version to these disks because they are already full which is really annoying.

 

If I buy DVD-RW disks instead, will I be able to put more on each disk?

 

Is there anything else I could buy to store a copy of everything? I use a 2GB memory stick to take things back and forth to uni - are these reliable to store things long term?

 

Also (and this is probably a really silly question) - can digital files 'wear out' in the same way as CDs and tapes through over playing?

 

Mumble

 

There's no such thing as a silly question!

 

DVD's do store a lot more than CD's (typically 4GB compared to 700MB)

 

However, DVDs aren't perfect either - some cheaper brands can suffer from data loss (the dyes they use can deteriorate over time - the dye fades regardless of whether you play them regularly or not, so it's not the files that degrade but the discs themseves).

There are some brands better than others - for important stuff try to find brands made with "Taiyo Yuden" dye as this is generally accepted as the most stable.

 

However - you'd probably be better buying a portable hard disk. You can get them very cheap now in capacities of 500GB (so that over 100 DVDs worth!). They plug into your USB slot and just appear as another drive in Windows, so it's a simple case of copying the files, rather than using CR/DVD burning software which can sometimes be awkward to use (make sure the device is USB2 and that your USB connectors are USB2 as this is much faster than USB1.1)

 

USB memory sticks are usually reliable, but they occasionally fail (and when they do it's often a total failure) so they are best used for temporary storage.

 

Phil

[KateBall]

I'd definitely recommend a separate plug in hard drive - I agree they are so cheap now - comparatively speaking. I went down this route. Get one with lots of space - anything above 350gb I'd say. However even so would be worth doing a backup of your plug in hard drive to dvd's when you get the chance just in case that fails one day for some reason. Mine did the other day - although I got it working again. Check your laptop drive will write to dvd's.

[Mumble]

Thanks Flipper and KateBall,

 

I'll look into getting a separate hard-drive - that seems to be what I'm looking for - somewhere I can dump everything all together and keep updating it. I assume the normal PC shops are OK for this type of thing?

 

Mumble

[flipper]

Thanks Flipper and KateBall,

 

I'll look into getting a separate hard-drive - that seems to be what I'm looking for - somewhere I can dump everything all together and keep updating it. I assume the normal PC shops are OK for this type of thing?

 

Mumble

 

Yes, you could try usual shops, but on-line would be much cheaper (I assume I'm not allowed to recommend sites by name - so again, PM me if you want some names).

 

Kate's right as well - it wouldn't be a bad thing to back up your important stuffto DVD as well - hard disks are to easy to overwrite...

[KateBall]

Yes, you could try usual shops, but on-line would be much cheaper (I assume I'm not allowed to recommend sites by name - so again, PM me if you want some names).

 

Kate's right as well - it wouldn't be a bad thing to back up your important stuffto DVD as well - hard disks are to easy to overwrite...

 

 

Check out the Maplin site http://www.maplin.co.uk/ as well as PC world. I think Tesco also do a hard drive. Might be worth your while doing a search on the internet asking for recommended drives or perhaps when you find a drive do a search for a review on it. Some are definitely more reliable than others.

[KateBall]

Oh heck have I done the wrong thing mentioning names? SORRY

[Mumble]

The mods will always delete it if it's not allowed. Sorry to be daft, but how big is 320 GB in terms of files etc? Will that do all and more? Also how big (size wise) are these things? The picture looks huge :unsure:

[baddad]

The mods will always delete it if it's not allowed. Sorry to be daft, but how big is 320 GB in terms of files etc? Will that do all and more? Also how big (size wise) are these things? The picture looks huge

 

Erm... or you could try reading the rules so we don't have to!!

 

I'm fairly sure a link to Maplin is OK 'cos they're not a 'service' - in other words there's nothing they sell that you can't buy from a variety of other sources/distributors... it's no more specific than saying 'you can buy this book at amazon or ottakers' or something...

 

On the subject of DVD's... CD's are definitely a 'safer' back up medium as is an external HD, but the big plus is they're very cheap, and unless you're planning to store for absolutely YEARS without updating fairly reliable as long as you use a good brand... You DO Need a DVD burner, though mumble, so if you've got that fine, but you may have a CD Burner or a 'combi' which gives DVD & CD read capabilities but only burns CD...

 

AS far as HD Drives go, I just bought a 250G one from Amazon for under �50.00. You'd be hard pushed to fill that (If your laptops more than a year or so old that'll probably be bigger than your current memory by miles) with Jpegs and MP3's, and if you did you could just buy another!

 

If I can find it I'll PM you a link...

(I converted mine from Fat32 to NFTS (a couple of clicks) but if your files sizes aren't going to exceed 4.5 gigs you don't have to bother...)

 

L&P

 

BD

[KateBall]

No they're not that big Mumble. The one I have is 8in by 1&1/2 " but I've seen them smaller. They sit nicely on the desktop. As far as gb space it depends what you are going to store. If you store a lot of movies - dvd's or recorded tv (if you have the facility to do that on you're laptop) then you might need a lot of space. A movie could take up 2 or 3 gb of space (or less if you reduce the quality). If you do lots of photos and work on photos then you also need a lot of space - or if you store lots of pictures or high quality music files, or loads of downloads. In any event I've seen something around 300gb reasonably priced. Don't go for much less than that - you'll soon fill it up and it wouldn't be cost effective.

 

Also just bear in mind that I'm not convinced about storing stuff on cdrw. cdr's are more stable I think.

[Mumble]

Thanks everyone (and thanks for the PMs BD and Flipper).

 

I'm going to go for a portable HD (decision making time ) and get some CDRs to put 'finished drafts' on. I don't have finished pieces of work as such, but at least they will mean I can get back something as a last resort if everything goes horribly wrong.

 

So I (will) have:

My files on my 'puter

My important PhD files on my memory stick

My important files attached to emails and emailed to me and saved in an email subfolder (I could also do this with my 'less' important stuff)

My files on a portable HD

My important drafts on CDRs (2 copies - one kept well away from everything else should laptop explode and take room with it)

 

That should be ok, shouldn't it? I'm really worried - another student had their laptop stolen recently, with their memory stick and so lost all their work.

[David Matthew Baker]

If you ever do decide to use DVDs to backup work the best ones are DVD-Ram discs if they are in their caddies. That however would throw another problem at you as there is no way you labtop would be able to write onto them whilst they're in a caddy. If they are in a caddy they can be rewritten over 10,000 times compared to traditional DVDs rewritables that are rated at around 1,000. DVD-Rams also drop to 1,000 if they're not in a caddy. The caddy is a bit like the outer layer of a zip disc and helps protect the disc from dirt and getting scratched. They also have error detection and correction on them so are a lot more secure and work more like a HDD rather than you needing to wipe an entire disc to rewrite it. If you wanted to use them you'd need an external caddy (this time I mean an enclosure for the drive) and then to also find a RAM drive that takes the discs in their caddies. Not all drives do. For instance the LG drives I use in my desktops can write a RAM disc but only ones not in a caddy.

 

I agree with the others that an external HDD is a good way to store files. However one word of warning. Try not to ever move the enclosure whilst the disc is powered. A HDD is a spinning circular plate which has a metal arm that is a very small distance from the surface that reads the magnetic data off the disc. If you knock the disc or move it whilst it is running it is possible this arm could move into the plate. This would cause permanant physical damage to the drive. Sometimes you are lucky and get away with it but it is best not to move them. We have had a few HDDs fail over time. One advantage of solid state media (such as the USB keys, etc...) is that they don't have any moving parts so there is less to go wrong.

 

On the issue of CDs versus DVDs the main difference is the area a file takes up. As so much more data is squeezed into a small area on a DVD a small scratch on the surface will make a lot more files unreadable. However a DVD-Ram disc because of the way it is constructed would technically be more secure than a CD. Also if you don't mind using slightly older technology what firms used to use is DAT drives. These were digital tape drives that could safely and securely store a lot of data. Also thieves probably wouldn't be interested in one now days. Most firms have moved to RAM drives. As whilst RAM is not popular in the home market it is more popular with businesses. This does mean the discs aren't particularly cheap though.

 

The last option that I didn't see anyone mention and haven't personally ever used but know businesses often do is online backups. Where you pay a company a monthly fee to keep a backup of your important documents on their servers. This removes it from your system completely and these sort of companies will normally have things like mirrored raid arrays to check they don't loose any data. (This is where you have multiple hard discs and the data on one is identical to another. If one disc fails it is still safely on another disc. You then replace the disc that failed and it copies the data onto the new disc. Some also include parity checking for extra security.)

 

I've probably confused you further. Anyways if you have any questions just ask and I'll try and simplify what I've written.