Computer nerds!

[basteki]

Preferred computer backup method?

DVD-RW's

or

External HD

Why? What brands do you like? Price differences?

:o

I need at least 50 gigs worth of backup space.. I just realized I have no idea how much room writable DVDs hold, haha.

Comments

[lemonfruitpie]

external<3 :O I just got one recently and it makes me feel so much les paranoid. As for brand, I wouldn't know; I just went for the best deal which was $70 (that was with rebate) for 120 gigs.

[demonvaska]

External HD's are a better solution, but damn they are unreliable these days. Problem is they're all being made dead cheap in Vietnam or Romania, and the quality is garbage. DVD-RWs are MUCH safer and more reliable if you're worried about your data, but writing 4 gigs worth of stuff will take an hour which is a pain. If you go with an HD, spend the extra money and get a 2-disc RAID system from La Cie or Seagate.

[ksilebo]

They typical 2-disk RAID system from LaCie or Seagate is in RAID-0. One drive dies, you lose all the data.

[shadowolf]

Both! Get good quality DVD-Rs (name brand, versus cheap) and don't write on 'em with anything but approved water based inks (sharpies can screw with the plastic)

a good quality external HD is great for quick access to old files. 50GB is a dozen disks or a chunk of a HD- disks are much cheaper, though.

[lantairvlea]

DVDs hold about 4.7gigs.

I use both as you can never have too many back-ups. I've had my external HD for almost four years and I believe the cost has come down since then. This reminds me that I need to do another DVD back-up.