This Slashdot post asks the perennial question, how do you back up all this data you’re creating with that nifty computer and attendant devices?
The person who submitted the item has a misplaced, in my opinion, fear of using optical media citing a study about optical media failures rates. I recently had the opportunity to test the failure rate of optical media and was very pleased with their resiliency.
Here’s my backup method: I use a program that backs up all important files to Zip archives. Every weeknight the program does a differential backup, and every Friday it does a complete backup of what is now well over 200gb of data. On the weekend I burn the complete back up plus the differential backups to DVD+Rs.
I’ve been using this same procedure for about 8 years now, using CD-Rs before writeable DVDs came along. As a result I ended up with hundreds of CD-Rs filled with backups. That was becoming a storage nightmare, so I decided to reduce the storage requirement a bit and extend the preservation of that data by copying all the Zip files on the CDs to a hardd rive and then burning the backup sets back to DVD+Rs.
Out of 1,000 or so CDs that I copied to DVD in this way, only about 20 of them failed. In all cases, these were CDs that had been improperly stored or ill-treated at some point. Of the CDs that I had placed in CD cases and boxed in the basement, not a single one failed, including CDs on no-name brands where the dye looked like it was clearly undergoing chemical changes and the cheap green had taken on an almost orange-ish hue.
So, frankly, I’m convinced of optical media’s use as an archival method for 10 years or so. I’m sure the media can probably last longer than that if stored properly, but I’ll be converting my DVDs to HD-DVDs or whichever of the next generation high-capacity optical media wins over the market.
So in summary, optical media is great if a) you make regular multiple copies, such as on a weekly basis and b) you’re prepared to convert to the latest, great optical media format every decade or so.
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