[iceangel89]

after trying to backup all data some from HDD,CD,DVD to a external HDD, i get tons of errors here and there like for 1 of my DVD, it says

Quote

Cannot copy file or folder
...MS-DOS Error

after some googling, i found out i can use Extract feature of ISO Buster, worked but it produced many

Quote

Sector could not be read

what i did was use tons of alcohol, to clean the disk & disk drive everytime the error came out and finally it worked. all data backed up.

so whats the best media to backup data? i like HDDs for the size & speed to gives but it spoils more easily than DVDs? but DVD is too small ... and tape? not really for me isit? i am a 18 yr old home user

[nmX.Memnoch]

DVDs should be fine if you're not using cheap media. I typically use Verbatim or Memorex. External hard drives can be a good solution as well.

Remember, no single solution is completely safe. It's best to use a combination (i.e. both DVDs and an external drive).

[iceangel89]

i am using memorex & imation so shld be all right, the prob with DVDs are the time to burn, lower speeds are more relaible but the waiting time ...zzz also i am limited to 4GBs on regular DVDs i am using... i currently have lots of DVDs and its troublesome to find which DVD has what i want and keep changing DVDs. HDDs allow me to plug it in and access lots of files at once at faster speeds...

[hmaster10]

iceangel89, on Aug 21 2007, 11:59 PM, said:

lower speeds are more relaible

Is that statement true? ****, if it is... oh well, if I only knew... all my DVD are high speed (16x).

[iceangel89]

what i mean is burn at lower speeds when u burn at fast speeds i guess more chance of errors

[ripken204]

iceangel89, on Aug 22 2007, 06:48 AM, said:

what i mean is burn at lower speeds when u burn at fast speeds i guess more chance of errors

definitely. i always burn my dvds at 8x just b/c i dont want something to mess up. it only takes ~8min at 8x so i could care less.

This post has been edited by ripken204: 22 August 2007 - 06:46 AM

[nmX.Memnoch]

I've never had any problems with the quality of my burns and I burn 'em all at 16x (48x for CDs). Again, good quality media paired with a good quality burner goes a long way.


iceangel89: What I meant about using both an external hard drive and DVDs is that the external hard drive would be your primary backup means. The DVDs would be a backup to that...and even at that I would only burn the most important stuff that I absolutely couldn't lose (family pictures, documents, etc). That's the cheaper method anyway.

[puntoMX]

Same here, DVDs at 18x CAV (6 minutes). I burn a backup of 4.3GB every 2 weeks or so, and save a new project on an extra copy.

[Zxian]

I also try to burn the very important data to DVDs, but the problem I've got is with incremental backups. There's no point in having the same data on all your DVDs you've burned for the past 6 months. Multi-session discs are a no go as well, since the overhead is usually comparable to the amount of data I need to backup.

Anyone have any solutions for this?

[nmX.Memnoch]

Zxian, on Aug 22 2007, 01:12 PM, said:

Anyone have any solutions for this?

Tapes or a comparable equivalent. What I mean by "equivalent" is something like the Dell PowerVault RD1000. As I understand it, it can be made to act like a tape drive for doing incremental backups...but accessing it is much faster. They have an internal version as well so it can be attached directly to a SATA controller, although I'm not sure if the internal version is available for direct purchase (as opposed to purchasing with a server). Additionally, you can purchase extra drive cartridges.

A lot of backup hardware makers are starting to offer hard drive based backup solutions because they're cheaper, faster and more reliable than ever.

You can also use a utility like XXCopy (eXtended XCopy). I use that for backup purposes. With the right switches it'll make your source and destination match perfectly...right down to file attributes, security permissions and audit settings.

This post has been edited by nmX.Memnoch: 22 August 2007 - 12:25 PM

[Zxian]

Did you purchase XXCopy? I had it running as a schedule task to run the backups, but they never actually got to work, since I got the "this is only for testing purposes, blah blah blah".

[puntoMX]

nmX.Memnoch, on Aug 22 2007, 12:24 PM, said:

A lot of backup hardware makers are starting to offer hard drive based backup solutions because they're cheaper, faster and more reliable than ever.

That’s what I would say, especially with a nice fileserver like Zxian has.

@ Zxian,

I use "overlapping" backups so if a backup is damaged I can go back to an older one. Of course, this is only for not update/modified files... DVDs with the session kept open are not accepted by all DVD-optical drives so indeed no go.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Zxian, on Aug 22 2007, 02:04 PM, said:

Did you purchase XXCopy? I had it running as a schedule task to run the backups, but they never actually got to work, since I got the "this is only for testing purposes, blah blah blah".

Yes, we have 20 licenses at work. But I didn't think the freeware version gave you any warning flags unless you were accessing a network share? It's been a whiiiiiiiile since I messed with the freeware version though.

You might be able to pipe a key input to the command line. Something like:

echo Y|xxcopy.exe source destination /switch1 /switch2 /switch3 /etc

[Zxian]

Considering that all my backups are going to my network share (I think XXCopy even detects network drives), I get the warning flag.

I'll have to try the piping though...

[nmX.Memnoch]

XXCopy does detect network drives. The full version doesn't give you any flags though, it just processes the command without stopping.

The freeware version throws all sorts of flags. I'll try to give it a look tonight to see if piping the ECHO to it works.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Man...I pulled out an old trick and it still wouldn't work. The ECHO Y| xxcopy.exe /switches didn't work...so I tried:

xxcopy.exe source destination /CLONE /Y /YY < y.asc

The contents of y.asc were simply the character Y. No go there either. I finally did this in a KiX script, but it has to be interactive...

Shell '%COMSPEC% /C START "" @SCRIPTDIR\xxcopy.exe "SOURCE" "DESTINATION" /CLONE /Y /YY'
Sleep 1
SendKeys("{ENTER}")
Exit

I use A LOT more switches when I run XXCopy...that's just an example.

[Brando569]

im trying an online backup solution and so far so good. ive given up with local backups because half the time they dont work when you really need them too. ive had HDDs crash when ive had stuff backed up on them or i would delete the partition by accident. with cds/dvds they would get scratched over time or it would just be a bad burn/disc and they wouldnt let me copy anything off of them (the most recent example was last night when i tried to transfer a lot of files i had downloaded previously and burnt to dvds, when i went to transfer them to my new 500gb hdd i kept getting CRC errors) the only problem with online backup is it takes awhile if you have alot of stuff to backup, that is unless you have a fast upload speed. i only have a max of 40kB/sec (read 40 kilobytes/sec not bits) so i dropped it down to 30 to allow room for over head. it took me about a month to backup ~50gb, the crappy thing is you pretty much have to reupload everything if you reinstall windows, the company (mozy) says it doesnt really do that it just checks their servers for the files that you previously backed up, but i think thats BS since it takes just as long and for it to work after you reinstall windows you have to login to your account and pretty much delete your computer from there and then re-add it immediately. its a slight PITA but i think its kind of worth it for unlimited storage space for only $5/month per computer

This post has been edited by Brando569: 22 August 2007 - 11:01 PM

[nmX.Memnoch]

Hehe...online storage isn't really viable when you're talking 600GB worth of data to backup (for a full backup of my file server). I wouldn't do it even with my 1Mbit/s upload.

I also don't trust anyone else having access to my data. Once it's on their servers they can do whatever they want with it. No thanks. That's how videos and pictures get leaked.

This post has been edited by nmX.Memnoch: 22 August 2007 - 11:18 PM

[Brando569]

very true, i retract what i previously said about the re-indexing. it seems it is pretty fast compared to the initial backup. even though i bumped my backup set down to 21gb it says its only going to take about 3 days, compared to what would most likely be about 2-3 weeks with the initial backup. if your are really paranoid about someone looking at your backups you can use your own encryption key with mozy, none of my stuff is that important so i just use their key. maybe i should change it just for the hell of it idk...

i think blu-ray will be really nice to backup data on, a 50gb disc thats enclosed in a case like a floppy 12 of those and theres your 600gb

This post has been edited by Brando569: 23 August 2007 - 12:38 PM

[nmX.Memnoch]

Brando569, on Aug 23 2007, 01:27 PM, said:

i think blu-ray will be really nice to backup data on, a 50gb disc thats enclosed in a case like a floppy 12 of those and theres your 600gb

I can get three 750GB external hard drives for a fraction of the price.