On 2 Jan 2006 at 13:35, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > I said nothing about using a hard drive for permanent storage, just for > backup. I also said that for some files a DVD would be a good idea. I > don't believe that DVD's and CD's are necessarily archival, but then I > don't believe that an external hard drive that is used only for backup is > particularly susceptible to catastrophic failure. Current hard disks are > pretty solid, IMO, and with proper disk maintenance - checking for and > excluding bad sectors, for example - an external hard drive should last a > long time and do its job capably and easily.
I only write to write once media (I write a single session and close the disc) and therefore I treat them as both back-up and permanent archive. I personally don't think that there is any device available to the general public that has greater archival quality or offers greater reliability than DVD media. I'm pretty sure that DVD media in its current incarnations has far outstripped the longevity of film as a long term storage media. Hard discs can have bearing failures (common) and head crashes, neither of which are easy to recover from if at all and both are more prevalent in drive that aren't cooled adequately or have suffered excessive physical shocks (ie portable drives in housings). Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
