Re: [APML] OT: External Hard Drives for Archiving data

[RBissinger@aol.com]

Having recently received my USB-upgraded ST-10XME I, too, encountered this issue.  Previously I was able to get by with 100MB zip disks, but 100MB ain't what it used to be.  I just got an external USB CDR drive and can now burn 700MB disks quickly, cheaply, and importantly, reliably.  The system would frequently "hang" with the zip disks and I would see corrupted files, but so far the CDR's are clean.  The drives run around $150 with the CD's being dirt cheap.  In another year or so when standards settle down I could see moving to the DVD's.

Another concern I'd have about a hard drive, no matter what the size, is it's still "all your eggs in one basket"...any drive can still fail, and while recovery can often be done it's inconvenient and may not be complete.  Now I burn the CD's, do a quick read of the files for verification, and that's it.

In a message dated 7/27/2002 7:37:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time, robgendler@worldnet.att.net writes:

> Hi all,
> Was wondering if anyone out there is using an external hard drive
> for backing up +/or archiving data. I just bought a "Maxtor" 120GB
> external (USB) hard drive and was amazed at how easy and efficient
> it was to use. Multigigabytes of data transferred so quickly and easily.
> Probably CD's or DVD's are more durable methods of archiving data
> but I was impressed at how user friendly these external drives are now.
> Rob Gendler
> Email: robgendler@att.net
> Web site: http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/