Backups was Restoring MBR - Solved

[Robert L Krawitz]

   From: "Matt Galster" <mattg at timesucker.ne.client2.attbi.com>
   Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 19:58:11 -0500

   I've had numerous heartbreaks with tapes over the years.  DAT
   proved least trouble, and AIT gave me fits on some winnt 4.0
   systems about five years ago.

I went through two DAT drives -- in very short order -- before giving
up on the format.  On my first (1994) computer I had one of those
cheapie cartridge drives.  The drive was reliable, but the media were
expensive and not terribly reliable.  DAT media are also very
expensive by today's standards; DVD's (and even large hard drives) are
much cheaper.

   I'd really prefer multiple off-site copies to a HD than tape.
   Newer HDs have a much higher reliability than the older HDs had,
   and they blow away tape unless you go to drives that cost about the
   same as a new car.

Currently I use DVD's for backup.  It's rather time consuming, but
it's cheap.  It took 23 DVD's to back up my stock of images, not
counting the 8-10 reburns I had to do (I was careful to use my
fastest, but flakiest, DVD drive to verify them; my experience is that
if this drive can read a DVD then just about anything can).  It's also
a good transfer medium.

My concerns about using HD's to back up data is the cost and long-term
reliability (although perhaps if I'm using DVD's I shouldn't be
talking about that).  Perhaps I should rethink this at some point.

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <rlk at alum.mit.edu>

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