>I'd thought that Iomega Zip Drives were obsolescent, but on investigation >they appear to be sold quite widely still. For image backup/transfer >purposes they're not competitive with CD, but for our other (text) records >& correspondence they seem to have advantages, such as re-useable zip-discs >with a long life, and are inexpensive. Ideal for constant (several times >daily) backups of big text files. Any opinions on these? If considered OT, >please reply off-list. I can buy a 250Mb drive from EBuyer for under �90. Thanks - Tony >H
Can�t decide if this is OT, so apologies if it is....... I can�t quite imagine why I would want to back up (e.g.) big text files several times a day. I would have thought this type of process is best done on the machine you are working on. The file sizes you infer (i.e. sub 250Mb) should not kill your �on-line� storage. Incremental alterations in such sized documents are probably best tracked in (for e.g.) Word�s �Track Changes� rather than saving a unique document of 250Mb ever xx minutes. Moving on from that (there is always a reason to do whatever) � I agree with your point about price � CD is cheapest, and IMHO more reliable as a short term (emphasis on short-term) back-up medium (e.g. WORM being somewhat safer for me as I can�t accidentally overwrite it). If you have the technology to do this is the UKP90 better spent elsewhere? Writing to CD is a background task (~) and can be done in two increments if required. My own workflow includes an external firewire hard disk, that I use as a temporary archive (the internal main disk array employs RAID mirroring for a degree of safety). Once I have reached ~4.5 Gb I write the data to DVD-R or DVD-RW depending on how long I think I want to keep the data. Of course this requires even more expensive hardware, but prices are dropping and I imagine most PRODIG�ers are prepared to invest where the business justification is high (e.g. exponential increase in data and/or better medium for distribution and sales). Regardless of medium (CD or DVD), I would suggest (rather than Zipies) considering additional hard disk (internal or external) for interim (say during the session/day) back-up and a scheduled/automated archive to CD/DVD when machine not in use or capacity is reached. For those with more resources, the extra HD could be in a separate machine on your network (possibly the old one you don�t know what to do with after you upgraded), giving a little bit more resilience. Whatever you chose to do will still be infinitely better than having no back-up's (a sin of the highest order). I have avoided going further into back-up and longer term archiving strategies as that is probably even further OT, but there are many more options there (and CD/DVD is unlikely to be something to rely on for the long-term archive). Regards Phil =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
