I don’t own an Xbox 360 and I suspect most of my readers don’t, either, but some of the millions of people who do decided that they wanted to be able to back up their games. (In this case I strongly suspect that “back up” is a euphemism, but, on the other hand, even Microsoft does allow you to make a single copy of their software CDs in case the originals are destroyed.) However, copies of game … [Read more...]
Replacing Tapes with DVDs
In his August 15 post Rethinking backup, ZDNet's Paul Murphy suggests replacing standard tape drives with a combination of RAID array and DVD superdrive. "The cash savings are obvious but other things may be more important. For example, high quality DVDs outlast tapes, cost less, and require less storage space." It's true, people talk a lot about the 30 year shelf life of tape, and DVDs, like … [Read more...]
FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 6-25-04: Dead Media
Dear FileSlinger™ clients, colleagues, and friends: I've been searching the Web for interesting items on backups and came across an article discussing the frequent failure of backup systems (due to one reason or another) and the even-more-frequent failure of businesses and individuals to have backup systems. One response written to this article was from a developer at a major storage management … [Read more...]
FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 4-31-04: The DVD-writer arrives
Dear FileSlinger clients, colleagues, and friends: I've actually been up late two nights in a row making backups. (You must be thinking "Get a life.") My new DVD-writer arrived on Thursday. It came with Sonic Simple Backup, which I thought I'd try, so I installed it and started up a job. It turns out that my data (documents, photos, Quicken, and Outlook) takes up almost exactly 4.7 GB, which is … [Read more...]
FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 4-23-04: DVD-writer & REV drive
I have just ordered a combination USB/Firewire CD/DVD writer and will let you know how it works once it arrives. Until recently, DVD writers were more expensive than external hard drives, but this one was only $180 and came with a rewritable DVD. I'm thinking it's a good option for backing up those items which change occasionally and are too large to fit on a CD—not to mention for producing … [Read more...]