Digital BW, The Print

Ginny,

> Actually, one cannot compare 'like with like' since the essential
> components of HDs are not made of gold. I have 4 computers at home for
> me and the family. We have at least one HD failure a year amongst the
> 4. (Each has 2 HDs---one is for ghosting)

I would buy a different brand of hard disk in that case!

I have been using Western Digital HDs for many, many years (20?) and never 
had a failure yet. I currently have about 20 WD Caviar and Raptor disks in 
various capacities in several computers, and none have failed. Old ones I 
either use for backups and leave on the shelf, or sell or give away, and 
none of those I have sold or given away seem to have gone wrong either.

So you can see why I said what I did.

I used to use Kodak Gold cds and Panasonic DVD-rams, but having now got 
about 400GB of images, it just seemed impractical to put them all on cds - 
I'd need about 600 cds for one copy! I could get one copy on less than 100 
dvds, but with reliable 250GB hard disks at current prices, it seems by far 
the best option. I keep about three copies of everything on three separate 
disks, so even if a disk does go one day, I still would have two more to 
recover from.

So it comes down to three hard disks, versus 1800 cds, or 300 dvds, for a 
main copy and two backups. The new dvds will improve things with 15, 20, or 
30GB per disk, but we don't know their reliability yet.

Cds and dvds are great for music and films etc, where you can lose some info 
and it still works and most people won't know the difference, but with data 
you can't afford to lose anything,

Bob Frost.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ginnylady33" <ginnylady33@...>