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Backup Day (DVD Burns)


V.T. Eric Layton

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V.T. Eric Layton

Well, it's the 1st of the month again. That means it's backup day here at the ol' Slacker's house.

 

For weekly backups, I use rsync to mirror my Slackware /(root) and /home partitions to an identical hdd on my system. I use Clonezilla to mirror my MS Win 7 Enterprise partitions to an identical hdd, also. Yes, there are four distinct hdds on this system. Anyway, for longer term storage/backups, I burn data directly to DVDs and store them safely away.

 

Whilst going though my old disk zippy bag, I came across some amazingly old disks in there. I had burned .isos of Slackware all the way back to v.9. I also had my original burn of Ubuntu 6.06. HA! Well, all that stuff (particularly the Slackware) is still available on most repo servers; not that I'll be installing Slack v.9 on anything anytime soon, but you never know. So, with that in mind, a bunch of disks ended up in my plastic recycle bin outside. Oh, that included many disks for HP hardware, misc. motherboards, sound cards, modems, etc. I even have the original floppy for my Zip100 drive. ;)

 

Ah... the memories.

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Yes I got rid of a bunch of old CDs and DVDs recently as well. They were mostly ISOs from 2009-2012 that I won't run any more.

I honestly haven't burned or booted an optical ISO in years. CDs are totally useless now and the low cost and reliability of thumbdrives has obviated the need for DVDs for installing a Linux system. I still have DVD burners in most of my machines except for netbooks though. It doesn't cost all that much to put one in if you're building and most business grade laptops still have them unless they are very lightweight and thin.

That said I can see the DVD becoming just like the floppy disk in a few years - in spite of its capacity compared to a floppy.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I was never a big CD/DVD burning fan. It's SOOOOOO slow. I can write data to a flash drive lickity-split. To burn a DVD with about 3Gig data takes nearly 10 minutes sometimes. Ah well, SATA IV or V would be gooder, but alas... we don't have that capability as of yet.

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Even if you have a relatively fast DVD-RW you still better choose a slower burn rate (and make sure to verify) if you don't want a coaster at the end. I just find the flashdrives to be better in every way. And nowadays even an external drive isn't too expensive.

I suppose that DVD is the best long term archive media (aside from paper that is.)

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I don't burn any more. I think the last thing I burned was cassette tapes I transferred to a computer then burned to CDs.

Most everything is now either mp3 or mp4 and saved on USB sticks and/or sd cards (regular and micro).

 

I do monthly images and rotate between 6 external hard drives. (Four computers). I guess i could start removing some of the older images from the external drives. I doubt that I'll restore a 3 year old image to a computer. It would be a nightmare to update it.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Even DVDs go bad. I found that out when I went to watch my Firefly series a few months back. The DVDs (the entire set) were deteriorated. They had dark spots on the metal (within the plastic coating) and would not read properly. I bought these disks brand new about 10 years ago, I guess. They've always been kept clean and stored properly on the DVD rack in this room (climate controlled).

 

Cheap Chinese carp, probably. They're all drink coasters now. :(

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securitybreach

Yeah, I couldn't tell you the last time I used a disc of any sorts. I only use usb drives now.

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abarbarian
[quote name='V.T. Eric Layton' timestamp='1496505071' post='450879']
Even DVDs go bad. I found that out when I went to watch my Firefly series a few months back. The DVDs (the entire set) were deteriorated. They had dark spots on the metal (within the plastic coating) and would not read properly. I bought these disks brand new about 10 years ago, I guess. They've always been kept clean and stored properly on the DVD rack in this room (climate controlled).

Cheap Chinese carp, probably. They're all drink coasters now. :(
[/quote]

Thought you had the Firefly series on a usb stick ? :breakfast:
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V.T. Eric Layton

 

Thought you had the Firefly series on a usb stick ? :breakfast:

 

Not that I know of...

 

Did you include it on that stick with Dr. Who?

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V.T. Eric Layton

You know, there was all kinds of good stuff in that package that Bambi forwarded to me from you a few years back. I had forgotten about the 4 dvds and the oodles of ebooks in there. :)

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It's always good to rip a DVD and store a copy on a stick or a portable hard drive.

 

I see Crackle, not sure if it works in linux, has Firefly episodes available for streaming.

I was thinking about installing it on my larger tablet. hmmm

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