I do not like using CD's because the storage is too small. Even DVD's are not quite big enough to completely back up a system. They are also cheap and you can still experience unreliability. Even the "good" cd's are still too unreliable for me. When I first got started I used dat tapes and sold some to customers. That was a big mistake. I was replacing the tape drive every year and once I had a new tape drive it was a crap shoot as to whether I could perform a restore or not from an old tape. If you are backing up your own data on your own system at your house then do what ever works because obviously price is a consideration, but if you are responsible for mission critical data, don't go cheap. It is just not worth it. Spend the money and do it properly. Like I said before, you get what you pay for. Regards, Wil McGilvery Manager Lynch Digital Media Inc 416-744-7949 416-716-3964 (cell) 1-866-314-4678 416-744-0406? FAX www.LynchDigital.com -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Cozens [mailto:kcozens-qazKcTl6WRFWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org] Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 4:36 PM To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org Subject: RE: [TLUG]: Data recovery emergency on a downed server... Help please!! At 12:55 PM 12/31/2003 -0500, Wil McGilvery wrote:

Backups in my opinion will never be a set it and forget it procedure. Periodic restores are necessary for peace of and the assurance that you can restore when necessary.

Tape and CD/DVD changers help but if the data is critical, someone still has to physically move the backups off-site and put fresh tapes or CD/DVDs in to the changer.

I have not heard of anyone successfully using cd's for backup purposes, but I do know of people using removable hard drives as an alternate to tape backups.

No one has successfully used CD's or DVD's? What sort of stories have you heard? Perhaps they were using el cheapo CD's? If one is serious about having good backups, you don't go for the cheapest backup media you can get. Cheers! Kevin. (http://www.interlog.com/~kcozens/) Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 |"What are we going to do today, Borg?" E-mail:kcozens at interlog dot com|"Same thing we always do, Pinkutus: Packet:ve3syb-XXPEJ3/fxIc at public.gmane.org#con.on.ca.na| Try to assimilate the world!" #include <disclaimer/favourite> | -Pinkutus & the Borg -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml