[H-GEN] DVD+RW media for backups

[Greg Black]

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On 2003-11-16, Jason Parker-Burlingham wrote:

> I've come into possession of a DVD+RW drive [...]  I've
> been playing with it trying to come up with a cheap, simple and above
> all reliable way to make backups of my system.

So far, all I can think of is "Ick!"  Just yesterday, I spent an
hour on the phone with my sister talking her and her partner out
of such a scheme for their home network, which is quite similar
(although they have less data to backup, being writers).

> I'd like to be able to script this---making backups by hand is made a
> *little* easier with LVM and filesystem snapshots but sitting around
> and nursing the process to completion is not going to be tenable in
> the long run.

Indeed.

> The system has only two users, is connected to the Internet through a
> slow dialup connection, and has one 40GB disk.  (The 10GB or so you
> see missing is as-yet-unallocated slack space which *could* be turned
> into another LVM block device.)
> 
> I can continue to fill this message with more information, but I think
> it's best to turn it over to the HUMBUG hivemind for now.

I rather thought the hivemind would have responded by now, but I
see that it needs somebody to start things off ...

> Any suggestions?

As anybody who has been paying attention knows, I am a complete
Luddite when it comes to backups -- if I am faced with the very
nasty surprise of discovering that I need to *use* a backup, I
really don't want the much nastier surprise of then finding that
I can't use it.  So I use hardware that's well away from leading
edge (but still nicely current) and I use the software that I
developed over some years and which hasn't changed for at least
fifteen years.

That software worked nicely with 60 MB QIC tapes back when that
was adequate for my needs; it transferred seamlessly to QIC-150,
DDS-1 and DDS-3.  There's no way it can transfer to DVD or the
like.  And, while DVD is so limited in space, it offers no real
benefit over DDS-3 tapes.

Yes, there are still issues with tapes; but I find DDS-3 tapes
are quite good and economical.  DVD's, even DVD-ROM's are not in
the same league, in my experience.  I've acquired quite a lot of
software on DVD from various sources over the past year and have
regular issues with read failures.  I never have those problems
with my tapes.  It's irritating enough when it happens on new
media with new software, but that's always something you can get
elsewhere (or have replaced).  Backups don't fit into that safe
category.

For now, my suggestion is: just say no.

Cheers, Greg

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