New addition to the Mark II - DVD.

[GenEOS]

I ran into a large file back-up problem. I could forsee it being a big problem, so I went looking for an external DVD burner.
Ended up with a Sony DRX-530UL, FireWire/USB2.0, 8x burner.
So far it has worked excellent adde to my Dell Laptop via the 4 pin FW connection.

I asked myself, why did I wait so long to get this thing?
4.7G on one disk is nice & matches the amount of CF I carry to a shoot.

[Laziferous]

Almost 5 gigs in one shoot :shock: You must be doing sports or something. I've shot a LOT if I come home with a 256mb card filled. 10-20 shots is my norm on an outing... unless I'm trying to capture wildlife. Silly animals won't sit still and be cooperative, like trees and rocks do :P

Do you back your images up on a HDD as well as the DVD's, or DVD's only? I would be scared to use a DVD as my only backup.

Congrats on the new burner. I'm sure it will come in handy quite often, even apart from backing up images. I contemplated the DRU-500 when it first came out, but never took the plunge. Heck, I'm still using a 24x CDRW drive :)

[ShootTechPan]

I'd wait for the dual-layer DVD+RW drives.

9 gigs per disk, readable most everywhere. Sony has one that's around $199.

[drisley]

But then you might as well wait for the new Hi-Def DVD's that are soon to be released.
They will hold 15-20GB of data I believe.

With technology, there is always something newer/better just on the horizon.

[GenEOS]

Crossing my fingers, not to loose data. I back up on 2 dvd's.
I just don't have the room on HDs...
I am using Sony DVD's and not the cheapo generics.
I hope that helps.
I have heard lots on the web about their life span.
Hopefully technology will bring a dependable way to archive...meantime DVD has to be it.
I think I will burn some CDs of the more important images.. To be a little safer.

Anyone got opinions on this?

[Volatile]

I use an external HD for backup. 120GB of storage goodness. What are the chances 2 HD's will fail at the same time?

I want to set up an external RAID 0 dual HD backup system, for the ultimato in safety. But that will have to wait until I get some more lenses and stuff.

[PacAce]

Crossing my fingers, not to loose data. I back up on 2 dvd's.
I just don't have the room on HDs...
I am using Sony DVD's and not the cheapo generics.
I hope that helps.
I have heard lots on the web about their life span.
Hopefully technology will bring a dependable way to archive...meantime DVD has to be it.
I think I will burn some CDs of the more important images.. To be a little safer.

Anyone got opinions on this?

I burn all my images to CD-Rs but I also have backup copies of what I burned to CD on a harddisk. When I have enough of the CD "images" to fill a DVD, I burn a DVD-R as a backup to the CD-R.

I used to burn two copies of CD-Rs but I've stopped doing that since I started burning the DVD-Rs.

[cgratti]

Crossing my fingers, not to loose data. I back up on 2 dvd's.
I just don't have the room on HDs...
I am using Sony DVD's and not the cheapo generics.
I hope that helps.
I have heard lots on the web about their life span.
Hopefully technology will bring a dependable way to archive...meantime DVD has to be it.
I think I will burn some CDs of the more important images.. To be a little safer.

Anyone got opinions on this?

I use Princo DVD-R's. Never a problem. And they are pretty decently priced. Memorex also makes good DVD-Rs. No coasters to date.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'd wait for the dual-layer DVD+RW drives.

9 gigs per disk, readable most everywhere. Sony has one that's around $199.

No need to wait.. the Sony Dual layer 8X burner is in stores now.. (saw one in CompUSA last weekend.. almost bought it,..)

Trouble is.. I can't find media.. but then.. I cna't find 8X DVD-+R either?

[samdring]

I use an external HD for backup. 120GB of storage goodness. What are the chances 2 HD's will fail at the same time?

You are right - little chance but for other reasons I would still use CD/DVD - if Jack the Lad with black balaclava and swag bag picks out your house he will certainly cherish your PC and external HD - can't see him bothering with that pile of used discs?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Having seen two HDs loose all the important data just last year.. I'd warn against trusting only a pair of hard drives :)

My system now has triple reduncy built in.. (RAID 1 mirrored drives and a third internal drive using delayed backup (4 days) of the data only,.. as well as two external back up systems.. a removable HD and I burn CD/DVDs

Fortunately I did NOT loose any photos last year.. but I lost everything I have ever typed... :( and lot of other stuff too.

Given that.. I am particular paranoid now about loosing my images! :wink:

[Cadwell]

I use an external HD for backup. 120GB of storage goodness. What are the chances 2 HD's will fail at the same time?

Remote, although I can remember about five occasions when it has happened to me (in a professional capacity).

The problem with trusting disc redundancy in order to keep your data safe is that you are only protecting against hardware failure. What happens if some application decides to corrupt your data? Your disc redundancy system is going to happily corrupt BOTH copies for you... (go and have a word with the guys at "fotopic.net" who have just learnt this lesson the hard way).

When it comes down to it... your best friend in keeping your computer data safe is still your tape drive.

[PacAce]

When it comes down to it... your best friend in keeping your computer data safe is still your tape drive.

Tape drive? ??? Now how is that? I used to use a tape drive (4/8 Gb travan) for my backup up until last year but now I use the DVD. DVD is faster and less expensive. Grant it, it's not reusable unless I use the DVD-RW, but maybe that's good in that it means that I inherently have archival copies of all my backups.

Of course, this may not be the case with the faster and higher capacity DAT drives but then not every body can afford those...not after spending all their hard earned money on camera bodies and lenses. :mrgreen: :lol:

[Cadwell]

Of course, this may not be the case with the faster and higher capacity DAT drives but then not every body can afford those...not after spending all their hard earned money on camera bodies and lenses. :mrgreen: :lol:

DAT drives? :shock: Gawd... antiques. It's LTO and SDLT nowadays... ;)

My take on it is fairly simple. I cannot see the sense in investing a small fortune in camera and lenses in order to take photos... and then putting the photos at risk by not investing in a competent backup strategy... CDs , DVDs etc are all very well but they are very low capacity and inherently fragile. One little scratch is all it takes *shudders*

[PacAce]

Of course, this may not be the case with the faster and higher capacity DAT drives but then not every body can afford those...not after spending all their hard earned money on camera bodies and lenses. :mrgreen: :lol:

DAT drives? :shock: Gawd... antiques. It's LTO and SDLT nowadays... ;)

My take on it is fairly simple. I cannot see the sense in investing a small fortune in camera and lenses in order to take photos... and then putting the photos at risk by not investing in a competent backup strategy... CDs , DVDs etc are all very well but they are very low capacity and inherently fragile. One little scratch is all it takes *shudders*

Well, you do have a very good point. If your images are very important to you, then by all means, it should be protected by whatever means is available. In all honesty, I would, too, if my livelyhood depended on those images.

And sorry about the DAT terminology. I haven't been keeping up with tape technology since I got mine. :)

[GenEOS]

I'd wait for the dual-layer DVD+RW drives.

9 gigs per disk, readable most everywhere. Sony has one that's around $199.

No need to wait.. the Sony Dual layer 8X burner is in stores now.. (saw one in CompUSA last weekend.. almost bought it,..)

Trouble is.. I can't find media.. but then.. I cna't find 8X DVD-+R either?

Cyber, Can you look up the model I bought, "DRX-530UL"
It says it is an 8X. but to get that I need to upgrade the drives on-line.

What is the 9Gig disks you are talking about? Does 8X relate to the amount of data you can get on the disk? I thought it was a speed thing?

I know I cannot find any 8X disks yet. This is a new world to me, any light you can shed on this is greatly appreciated.

[drisley]

8x is the speed. Most drives and media are currently 4x.

DVD burners are currently single layer, 4GB capacity.
The DVD's that hollywood puts movies on are usually dual layer, 9GB capacity.

Soon burners will be released that support dual layer 9GB discs, however initially they will only burn at 2.4x.

I've had an Aopen 4x4x8x DVD+R(W) for almost a year now, and it's been great! I highly recommend Maxell and Memorex discs.

Great info can be found at www.dvdrhelp.com

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'd wait for the dual-layer DVD+RW drives.

9 gigs per disk, readable most everywhere. Sony has one that's around $199.

No need to wait.. the Sony Dual layer 8X burner is in stores now.. (saw one in CompUSA last weekend.. almost bought it,..)

Trouble is.. I can't find media.. but then.. I cna't find 8X DVD-+R either?

Cyber, Can you look up the model I bought, "DRX-530UL"
It says it is an 8X. but to get that I need to upgrade the drives on-line.

What is the 9Gig disks you are talking about? Does 8X relate to the amount of data you can get on the disk? I thought it was a speed thing?

I know I cannot find any 8X disks yet. This is a new world to me, any light you can shed on this is greatly appreciated.

Sony DRU-700a

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2045

Other than the dual layer cpability.. it has the exact same specs as the 530...

Still .. the current drive burns at only 2X for Dual layer.. so it takes four times as long to burn one dual layer as it would take to burn TWO standard.. thus really eliminating the advantage for the most part....

and lord knows how well these disks will play back in individual players...

I'd say at this point in time it is probably a "too new" tech to be very usefull... give it a year and see if it matures by then.

[GenEOS]

Thanks for the info guys.

[Volatile]

The 2 HD's failing at the same time was a tongue in cheek bit of humor for myself... I had 2 fail recently.

I had to fall back to an old 6GB drive that was lying around because I was down to 1 working HD: the 40GB one in my laptop. Hence my desire for a raid backup system.

CD-RW/DVD-RW hasn't convinced me. I don't feel like erasing a rewriting a disk everytime I change a photo. And I often go back to old photos and retouch them.

No matter how you do it, backing yourself up is important. There are a million ways to skin a cat, and while it's arguable which is best, they are all, by great lengths, better than no backup at all.

[Penguin_101_1]

I have an external HD to back up pics, documents, ect. and it works great. I go through and keep all of my really good pics (2 or 3 :lol: )on my laptop hard drive and keep the rest on the other.

[theoldmoose]

Not any good data on longevity of DVD media, unfortunately.

For CD's the 'gold' standard is Mitsui Gold, which you can still get, although the brand was bought out by another company, they still use the same line (and process) to make their 100-yr rated media. Most everything else is crap, or worse, and the media lifetimes sometimes is measured in months. A couple of pros found out the hard way, when they went back to their CD archives after only a few months, and found one or more discs were unreadable.

I back up on DVD's, as well, and for the time being, have been using only Verbatim Data-Life Plus. They are the only DVD media manufacturer that at the moment is making any claims for the longevity of their DVD media, and also feature extra protective top layers to help prevent damage to the dye layer.

Until some better media comes along, that's about the best I've been able to do for DVD's.

Tape, BTW, is not a bad idea, but capacities, initial drive costs, and cost/gigabyte of the media can eat you alive these days compared to DVDs. It's pretty much put tape out of range for all but the professional pocketbook, although I succeeded in scoring some working DDS4 40/80GB SCSI 'pulls' at a local hamfest for about $75 each (they were more than $1000 each new).

I worked for Irwin Magnetics for almost seven years, so at one time I knew tapes inside and out. One thing I got pretty comfortable with was the error correction capabilities of tape media. We used to demo at Comdex by taking a hole punch and punching a hole in the tape, and then reading back all the data via Reed-Solomon Error Code Correction (which Irwin had a patent on for use on tape drives). Eventually Irwin was swallowed up in the buy-out frenzy in the late 80's, and their technology is currently owned by Seagate. You may see a label on older Seagate drives that could read DC2120-type tapes to the effect that they contained "Irwin Accutrak technology", another patented track servo-following process of Irwin's. BTW, Sam Irwin, the founder of Irwin Magnetics, passed on a few months ago. I remember reading about his estate auction in the local newspaper.