Message-ID: Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 01:53:26 From: "Joseph Morris" To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: VCR backups ??? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: bulk > 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. ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com