I've never used Zip. Mostly CDs seem to be reliable, but not always. In any case, CDs really aren't big enough. So far I haven't tried DVD. I've never used tape, but an important digital video tape i had was too corrupted to play on my camcorder, so that worries me. At the moment I'm using CD for backup - non-incrementally but critical data only.
It begs the question: what IS reliable?
I have a tape backup unit at home that saves to DDS3 tapes. Does 12G uncompressed, 24G compressed. I use uncompressed. These days they have even more storage than that. Beats CDs by far for reliability and storage capacity. Only disadvantage is its not quick acess to an individual file.
Use a good tape backup unit & good quality tapes and it IS reliable. I backup to tape then verify it and have not in two years had a verification error. But once tapes are worn you do need to replace them.
Mike -- Michael Lake Chemistry, Materials & Forensic Science, UTS Ph: 9514 1725 Fx: 9514 1460 [pls ignore idiot lawyer's msg below]
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