Do we really need optical drives any more?
Ohioguy
how it holds almost 4 times what a DVD +R disk holds. Then I thought
about how it can be erased and rewritten any number of times, and how it
didn't require me to buy a separate drive to use it.
If I wanted to buy a DVD burner, I'd pay something like $38-$40 to be
able to archive 16 GB onto 4 disks. It would take a long time, and there
would always be the possibility of getting scratches on the disks,
making them unreadable.
I got my 16 GB flash drive for about $30. Prices for this size have been
relatively stable of late, but that is partly due to the weakness of the
dollar relative to other currencies. (making imports more expensive) It
is only a matter of time before we see 32 GB flash drives for the same
price. With USB 3 motherboards now on the market, the flash drives will
hopefully be even faster than before.
I see that Blu-Ray disk burner drives are also dropping in price.
However, the media for this drive is going for about $3 a disk. Plus, it
still suffers from the possibility of the disks getting scratched, and
losing all the data. Each disk holds about the same as my 16 GB flash drive.
I've noticed that some places are even shipping games and such already
on USB flash drives. Others are just being downloaded directly these
days. It all makes me wonder if the age of optical media is already
slipping behind us.
What about you - are you going to spend $$ on a new optical drive, or
just thinking of getting a bigger USB flash drive when prices come down
(or storage goes up)??
Thanks!
Bob Eager
> I was thinking about my 16GB USB flash drive today, and thinking about
> how it holds almost 4 times what a DVD +R disk holds. Then I thought
> about how it can be erased and rewritten any number of times
There is a limit...
> If I wanted to buy a DVD burner, I'd pay something like $38-$40 to be
> able to archive 16 GB onto 4 disks.
Or even 32GB. But it's a one off cost...amortised over the number of
disks you'll burn with it, it's quite cheap.
> What about you - are you going to spend $$ on a new optical drive, or
> just thinking of getting a bigger USB flash drive when prices come down
> (or storage goes up)??
I worry about what I'm going to keep long term backups on.
Optical seems a reasonable bet....but I'd probably use USB as well.
--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Arno
> Thanks!
Be careful with USB flash. I have had silent errors in two of
them (putting a web-writeup up soon). Optical media have
reliable error detection, it seems some Flash drives have not.
Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: ar...@wagner.name
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
Stephen Wolstenholme
>I worry about what I'm going to keep long term backups on.
>
>Optical seems a reasonable bet....but I'd probably use USB as well.
I use a three level backup system. The first level is internal hard
drive, the second level is USB hard drive and the final level is two
web sites. I only use all three levels for the most important data as
it isn't really practical to upload all my data to the web. The two
web hosts are in different countries. I don't use optical backups at
all. USB flash drives are the way forward but I've gone that way yet.
Steve
--
Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com