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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/13/2014 3:06 PM, JD wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:53EBB72D.8080507@algoloma.com" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Guess I'm just confused by optical media these days. It isn't cheaper, isn't as
convenient, it isn't re-writable 100,000x AND costs more than a spinning disk.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I use "normal" optical media for backups and data interchange.
Write-once CDs and DVDs are pretty inexpensive to acquire and drives
are ubiquitous.<br>
<br>
The 25-pack of M-Disc BD-R for $130 is seemingly high-priced because
it's a completely different composition. Whereas most other discs
use dyes which break down over time, the M-Disc media are more like
a layer of stone which gets etched as opposed to burned. Requires a
higher power laser and all that jazz---but they essentially
guarantee that the discs will retain data under normal storage
scenarios for just about forever. I've heard that the military uses
them as they apparently sustain field wear much better than other
types of disc.<br>
<br>
For normal single-layer BD-R I would expect to pay between $0.75 and
$1.50 per disc right now. I managed to catch a hell of a sale at
Fry's one time where I picked up tons of them for about $0.45 per
disc, though I am starting to run low on them.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:53EBB72D.8080507@algoloma.com" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I suppose if there are HIPPA or other regulatory requirements, but in a house?
What am I missing?</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Not sure I follow.<br>
<br>
I use optical media for backups more or less like tape---I use
DVD+/-RW (whichever is less expensive at the time, honestly) and
those are good for 1,000 writes or so. That's not so bad when you're
using 7 of the things each once a week. The only ones I've had "go
bad" prematurely have been PEBDAC (problem exists between disc and
chair) issues. :-)<br>
<br>
I don't faithfully use them all the time, but I backup frequently
enough that I can always recreate my current state of work if
necessary, without too much trouble. Anything that takes me more
than 8 hours to download, I typically backup immediately. Anything
that takes more than a couple of days to download, I <b>always</b>
backup immediately. :-)<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:53EBB72D.8080507@algoloma.com" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">BTW, I have over 1,000 backup DVDs here (mix of 4.7 and 8G) ... but stopped
using optical when HDDs became less expensive. Slowly moving those to 2+TB HDDs
that can be connected via a USB3 dock.
Can someone please enlighten me?</pre>
</blockquote>
It's far more likely that your physically-smaller and less expensive
HDD is going to take all of its bits away at once and cripple you
far more heavily than the loss of a few optical discs (and even
then, you can usually read 98% of the data off of the optical disc,
unless you've shattered it or damage exists in critical areas of the
track).<br>
<br>
Of course, in a house fire it's easier to grab the HDD, so maybe the
HDD is a good <b>addition</b> to your backup regimen, but I
wouldn't replace the optical media at all. Maybe change the way you
use the optical media to make it more cost-effective, though; I
prefer a rotating backup schedule with RW media, and then
periodically very large ("level 0") backups to write-once media.
For those, I use a program called splitpipe to create the dumps, and
joinpipe when I have to read (or verify) them.<br>
<br>
Otherwise, I more or less attempt to back everything up soon after
wrapping up with it, and on a schedule of sorts. (I backup my
~/Projects directory more than any other, typically about once per
week.) I don't use fancy scripts or anything just yet. I've tried
things like rsnapshot and so forth, which work OK, but I like
tighter control.<br>
<br>
It's time for a backup system to come out with native support for
btrfs. A single well-placed component like that, and all backups
(from the point of view of application uptime) only take 30
seconds... but now I'm way off-topic.<br>
<br>
--- Mike<br>
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