Mail Archives: opendos/1997/09/26/03:59:10
> I went for ZIP drives in the end.. I found my backups are quite
> volatile
> (ie whole directory trees need updating). This is hard to do with
> tape
> but easy with disks.
[I think Arkanoid misunderstood my use of 'volatile', I didn't mean
unreliable, I meant that the data had to be updated regularly.]
>
> I'd be quite interested to know if they are actually reliable, as
the
> ZIP disks are fairly low capacity, and a bulk archiver might still
> be useful...
>
> You might want to give Jaz drives a look. They are basically the
same
> as Zip drives, except they hold 1GB. The media is probably more
> expensive, also.
> Craig
I had considered that, in fact we have a JAZ drive at Caldera, but it
is
not used much. The media is ~90 pounds (!). This meant that I cannot
afford to buy more disks, so having a mirror of important disks is
out of the question.
If one of my zip disks failed, I'd lose about 200Mb but I have
mirrored the important disks.
If I lost a Jaz disk (and I can't afford to mirror those) I'd lose
about 2Gb of data!
(I compress the files with RAR, good Russian archiver.)
I've been using ZIP disks for almost a year now, and I haven't lost a
single ZIP disk, although one of our two drives became intermittent, and
had to be replaced. It always was an odd one..
Also, there are strange Fujifilm disks which boast an extra protective
layer on top of the data.
In keeping with the VCR backup thread, I'd like to point out that I've
now seen the JPGs of the Arvid units, and they look nothing like the
Danmere Backer devices. They may be compatible though.
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