Re: [Texascavers] Re: archiving your cave data

[Rod Goke]

Why archive data on CDs or DVDs at all? Why not use external hard disk drives instead? They're getting cheaper in dollars/gigabyte all the time, and one drive can store the equivalent of a large collection of CDs and DVDs. It's easy to copy the entire content from one external drive to another, so you can easily back up your entire archival data collection and store separate copies in separate safe locations if you get 2 or more drives for this purpose. Similarly, whenever your archival drives become old enough that you suspect they might become too obsolete or unreliable, you can copy your archived data to a newer external hard drive much more quickly and easily that you can copy a large collection of CDs or DVDs.  If you want to minimize cost and your data collection isn't large enough to require the storage capacity of a new state-of-the-art disk drive, then consider buying some smaller capacity used drives from Craigslist or the Goodwill Computer Store (ComputerWorks). Also, if you want to use multiple external disk drives (e.g., for storing multiple copies in different locations or for archiving different kinds of data on separate disks) and if you intend to store some of these drives a long time before you expect to access them, then you probably can save money by buying multiple "internal" disk drives (as opposed to "external" drives) plus one or two external drive enclosures. You then mount each internal drive in an external enclosure just long enough to copy data to it, and then you remove the drive from the enclosure and pack it safely away for long term storage. This is practical primarily for long term archiving of data you don't expect to update or otherwise access any time soon. Similarly, it's a good way to archive a "cloned" copy of the original internal disk content of a new computer before you begin doing anything to modify it (in case you ever need to restore the computer's internal disk to its original state, and your "restore" CDs/DVDs no longer work). Sometimes lower capacity used internal disk drives suitable for this purpose can be purchased very cheaply. Rod --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com