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What's the modern reliable, rewritable media?
X-No-Archive: Yes
Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? I'd like something that can be permanently archived and can be used over and over again without a significant reliability compromise. Those flash ROM USB pen drives allows pretty good drag 'n drop copying and certainly better than zip drive for repeated use, but I'm skeptical of its long term stability. CD-RW is out of question. The disc itself is like eraser & paper. It's useful cycle is rated at 1,000 cycles, but real life life expectancy is disgustingly low. After as little as 20 cycles, error rate goes up much like paper wearing out after multiple erasing. When it's used in packet write format, the stored data is extremely unstable and slighest problem can wipe out everything. In my personal experience, packet write was less reliable than a floppy. Its capacity is comparable to a 640MB Magneto-optical disc but MO system is leap years ahead in reliability, but for some reason I never see them. CD-R, DVD-R, etc are nice for write once in one session applications, but what is the modern media that is high capacity, can be accessed like a hard drive/floppy drive and very reliable? |
#2
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In article ,
~Dude17~ wrote: X-No-Archive: Yes Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? I'd like something that can be permanently archived and can be used over and over again without a significant reliability compromise. Those flash ROM USB pen drives allows pretty good drag 'n drop copying and certainly better than zip drive for repeated use, but I'm skeptical of its long term stability. CD-RW is out of question. The disc itself is like eraser & paper. It's useful cycle is rated at 1,000 cycles, but real life life expectancy is disgustingly low. After as little as 20 cycles, error rate goes up much like paper wearing out after multiple erasing. When it's used in packet write format, the stored data is extremely unstable and slighest problem can wipe out everything. In my personal experience, packet write was less reliable than a floppy. Its capacity is comparable to a 640MB Magneto-optical disc but MO system is leap years ahead in reliability, but for some reason I never see them. CD-R, DVD-R, etc are nice for write once in one session applications, but what is the modern media that is high capacity, can be accessed like a hard drive/floppy drive and very reliable? Megneto-optical (MO) disks used to be the technology used when losing data meant someone got fired, I looked recently and see the disks are now as big a 1GB. The problem with all of these is the cost of the media. In this market "good enough" drives out "great", and CDR disks seem to be considered good enough. -- Al Dykes ----------- adykes at p a n i x . c o m |
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#4
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 Clinging to sanity, ~Dude17~ mumbled in his beard: Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? I'd like something that can be permanently archived and can be used over and over again without a significant reliability compromise. Those flash ROM USB pen drives allows pretty good drag 'n drop copying and certainly better than zip drive for repeated use, but I'm skeptical of its long term stability. CD-RW is out of question. The disc itself is like eraser & paper. It's useful cycle is rated at 1,000 cycles, but real life life expectancy is disgustingly low. After as little as 20 cycles, error rate goes up much like paper wearing out after multiple erasing. When it's used in packet write format, the stored data is extremely unstable and slighest problem can wipe out everything. In my personal experience, packet write was less reliable than a floppy. Its capacity is comparable to a 640MB Magneto-optical disc but MO system is leap years ahead in reliability, but for some reason I never see them. CD-R, DVD-R, etc are nice for write once in one session applications, but what is the modern media that is high capacity, can be accessed like a hard drive/floppy drive and very reliable? external USB hard disks or hard disks in removable drive bays. The former is more portable, hot swappable, and doesn't require you to keep a drive bay installed. Long term: I have many disks that are 5+ years old, but I haven't done things like letting a disk lying around unused for years before using again. If you want longer than that, go for MO, but I guess even then you'll have to evaluate your media and data formats after 5 years or so as old technologies become unavailable and new software can't read the old data (obviously this depends heavily on what data you're using - I'd expect a thing like jpg to be around for a long time, but I'm not so sure about, day, divx or wmv, or of course, the office format of the day.) cheers - -- vbi - -- Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: get my key from http://fortytwo.ch/gpg/92082481 iKcEARECAGcFAkE/7KVgGmh0dHA6Ly9mb3J0eXR3by5jaC9sZWdhbC9ncGcvZW1h aWwuMjAwMjA4MjI/dmVyc2lvbj0xLjUmbWQ1c3VtPTVkZmY4NjhkMTE4NDMyNzYw NzFiMjVlYjcwMDZkYTNlAAoJEIukMYvlp/fWzoEAoIdsj/+Sl6vagOXKeH4A0XBU QQhXAJ9Ds9iPxlBtJexh+bUbd4adNEykHA== =C5x5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
#5
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In article ,
Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Clinging to sanity, ~Dude17~ mumbled in his beard: Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? I'd like something that can be permanently archived and can be used over and over again without a significant reliability compromise. Those flash ROM USB pen drives allows pretty good drag 'n drop copying and certainly better than zip drive for repeated use, but I'm skeptical of its long term stability. CD-RW is out of question. The disc itself is like eraser & paper. It's useful cycle is rated at 1,000 cycles, but real life life expectancy is disgustingly low. After as little as 20 cycles, error rate goes up much like paper wearing out after multiple erasing. When it's used in packet write format, the stored data is extremely unstable and slighest problem can wipe out everything. In my personal experience, packet write was less reliable than a floppy. Its capacity is comparable to a 640MB Magneto-optical disc but MO system is leap years ahead in reliability, but for some reason I never see them. CD-R, DVD-R, etc are nice for write once in one session applications, but what is the modern media that is high capacity, can be accessed like a hard drive/floppy drive and very reliable? external USB hard disks or hard disks in removable drive bays. The former is more portable, hot swappable, and doesn't require you to keep a drive bay installed. Long term: I have many disks that are 5+ years old, but I haven't done things like letting a disk lying around unused for years before using again. If you want longer than that, go for MO, but I guess even then you'll have to evaluate your media and data formats after 5 years or so as old technologies become unavailable and new software can't read the old data (obviously this depends heavily on what data you're using - I'd expect a thing like jpg to be around for a long time, but I'm not so sure about, day, divx or wmv, or of course, the office format of the day.) cheers - -- vbi MO is widely used in business for archival storage and, IMO, if you should find an MO disk in your sock drawer 50 years from now you'll be able to send it sonewhere to be converted to whatever the current media is. I thing the popular standard data formats, like jpg and html, will be readable forever. C code never dies, and can be ported to the next great system, this applies to Open Source implementation. All it takes is one hacker, somewhere on the planet taht needs the same format you do to port the code. Proprietery stuff like Quicken data worry me. You have to match the application version to the data, and it has to run on an OS the vendor approves of. I actually see emulators as the solution here. -- Al Dykes ----------- adykes at p a n i x . c o m |
#6
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"~Dude17~" wrote in message om... X-No-Archive: Yes Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? Yeah, he http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/deta...ail,ewbfroogle VERY fast and relaible and 400GB for $400. It's good for at least 5 years and then can be copied to replacement media. I'd like something that can be permanently archived Define permanent. and can be used over and over again without a significant reliability compromise. Those flash ROM USB pen drives allows pretty good drag 'n drop copying and certainly better than zip drive for repeated use, but I'm skeptical of its long term stability. Define "long term". CD-RW is out of question. The disc itself is like eraser & paper. It's useful cycle is rated at 1,000 cycles, but real life life expectancy is disgustingly low. After as little as 20 cycles, error rate goes up much like paper wearing out after multiple erasing. When it's used in packet write format, the stored data is extremely unstable and slighest problem can wipe out everything. In my personal experience, packet write was less reliable than a floppy. Its capacity is comparable to a 640MB Magneto-optical disc but MO system is leap years ahead in reliability, but for some reason I never see them. CD-R, DVD-R, etc are nice for write once in one session applications, but what is the modern media that is high capacity, can be accessed like a hard drive/floppy drive and very reliable? |
#7
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In article ,
Ron Reaugh wrote: "~Dude17~" wrote in message om... Anyone know what's the modern high capacity rewritable media that can be written in a manner like a floppy drive using drag 'n drop that is very reliable? Yeah, he [link to 400G hard drive] By a really careful reading of the original question, yes, I suppose, but if someone's looking for something "like a floppy" then they're likely to need some of the other useful characteristics of a floppy as well: size, price, and physical robustness. This is fine for an emergency backup. It's not archival, it's not reliable or robust enough for that. But for more "floppy-like" uses a combination of flash media for drag-and-drop and CDR/DVD*R for larger capacities when you have the time to go through a burn. -- I've seen things you people can't imagine. Chimneysweeps on fire over the roofs of London. I've watched kite-strings glitter in the sun at Hyde Park Gate. All these things will be lost in time, like chalk-paintings in the rain. `-_-' Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U` |
#8
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#9
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In article ,
~Dude17~ wrote: X-No-Archive: Yes (Al Dykes) wrote in message ... In article , Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 MO is widely used in business for archival storage and, IMO, if you should find an MO disk in your sock drawer 50 years from now you'll be able to send it sonewhere to be converted to whatever the current media is. I thing the popular standard data formats, like jpg and html, will be readable forever. C code never dies, and can be ported to the next great system, this applies to Open Source implementation. All it takes is one hacker, somewhere on the planet taht needs the same format you do to port the code. Proprietery stuff like Quicken data worry me. You have to match the application version to the data, and it has to run on an OS the vendor approves of. I actually see emulators as the solution here. What I'd like to do is make frequent backup of things like weekly backup of My Documents folder and the such. CD-Rs are ok for one time backup, but it gets hard to keep track of what's changed, a file that's been modified can't be updated on a CD-R. I can do multisession and keep on adding, but reliability is questionable. CD-RW is out of question as its reliability is too poor. Same goes for FLASH drive. I need something that can be written/accessed like the flash drive or floppy while offering the advantage of archival, non volatile storage offered by CD-R. Zip and Jaz might offer the convenience and capacity, but they're very robust in my opinion. I had a Zip 100 and it was highly unreliable. Can you guys think of anything that will meet all of these beside M.O? If losing data is unacceptable, multiple generations of media are required, no matter how much you trust the technology. Do you need the latest version of any file or do you need to go back to the version of a specific date ? I like "delta" backups" A delta is like an incremental but all the new/modified files since the last FULL backup are written to media. This obviously grows over the month. Asit approachs a full media unit (CD, these days) I do a full backup (disk to disk) and the next day's delta backup is nearly empty. Does your data fit on a CD ? Burning it all into one CD a day, writing the date on it, and puting it in the drawer in date order doesn;t seem like a bad system. It works for me. If your data is larger than a CD then dividing it up by fle type or folder name to fit the chucks onto CDs might work. There are server-class backup systems that catalog every file on all media and let you search by all sorts of criteria. If you search by file name it tells you all files by that name and which media they are on. I've never seen this on a single-user application. -- Al Dykes ----------- adykes at p a n i x . c o m |
#10
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A hard drive.
"~Dude17~" wrote in message om... X-No-Archive: Yes (Al Dykes) wrote in message ... In article , Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 MO is widely used in business for archival storage and, IMO, if you should find an MO disk in your sock drawer 50 years from now you'll be able to send it sonewhere to be converted to whatever the current media is. I thing the popular standard data formats, like jpg and html, will be readable forever. C code never dies, and can be ported to the next great system, this applies to Open Source implementation. All it takes is one hacker, somewhere on the planet taht needs the same format you do to port the code. Proprietery stuff like Quicken data worry me. You have to match the application version to the data, and it has to run on an OS the vendor approves of. I actually see emulators as the solution here. What I'd like to do is make frequent backup of things like weekly backup of My Documents folder and the such. CD-Rs are ok for one time backup, but it gets hard to keep track of what's changed, a file that's been modified can't be updated on a CD-R. I can do multisession and keep on adding, but reliability is questionable. CD-RW is out of question as its reliability is too poor. Same goes for FLASH drive. I need something that can be written/accessed like the flash drive or floppy while offering the advantage of archival, non volatile storage offered by CD-R. Zip and Jaz might offer the convenience and capacity, but they're very robust in my opinion. I had a Zip 100 and it was highly unreliable. Can you guys think of anything that will meet all of these beside M.O? |
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