Number 272 - January 2006

Backing Up To DVD
from Random Access, Danbury Area Computer Society September 2005 by Bruce Preston, Moderator
Q. I am considering getting a DVD drive for backups. What capabilities, media, speed, price should I expect?    A. First, there is about a 5 to 1 price differential between rewritable media versus recordable media. So you might want to consider using plain recordable media for your backups. In addition to being less expensive, writing to a plain recordable media is faster than to rewritable.    Another advantage is that this lets you maintain "generations" of backups--so that you might maintain multiple versions/revisions of the same document. This comes in handy if you find that you want to "undo" a change made prior to your most recent backup.    You might consider getting an external DVD burner with a USB 2 interface. This would let you move the drive between machines--either yours or in the case of an emergency, some one else's machine. Note that you really need a USB 2 interface (which machines made within the last two or three years should have.). USB 2 is capable of 480 Mbps (mega-bit per second) versus USB 1.1 at 12Mbps. If your computer does not have a USB 2 port, don't despair, if you have an available PCI slot you can add one--cards are made by Adaptec, Belkin, SIIG to name a few.	They come in varieties having two or four ports, and some also come with Firewire ports. Firewire is commonly used as the interface for digital video.    Note also that you can get an external drive enclosure--a small box with has its own power supply, and a USB2 to EIDE interface. This lets you mount what would normally be an internal drive in the enclosure and use it as a portable device.    One other consideration is "lightScribe" technology--this is the ability to burn labels onto a coating on the top of light-scribe supporting media. (Data is on the underside of a CD or DVD) This requires that the burner support lightScribe, as well as your burning software. However, be aware that it may take as much as 40 minutes to burn a label.    As for prices, they are all over the map--a lot depends upon the manufacturer (and implied quality,) speed and capabilities of the drive. You should expect to be able to store about 4.7GB of data on a regular single-layer DVD+R or DVD-R. Dual layer DVD will handle about 8GB, but requires a dual-layer capable burner/reader. When you look at a drive, check its specifications--some have a preferred media, for example my HP DVD640 works faster with DVD+R media.
Number 272 - January 2006