Thanks for the replies. 
The combo drive I mentioned (Panasonic LF-D311) I've seen on the web for as low as US$399 for the bare drive. I'm looking at a package that includes dvd authoring software and two discs (one 9.4gb dvd-ram & one 4.7 dvd-r) for about US$520.
That seems fairly reasonable.
I haven't really seen any tape backup systems that got me excited in this price range. I'd been using an "Onstream" system, but it crapped out a few months ago, just about the time the company closed its North American operations.
The way I like to protect my data is to do daily backups on one media for about a week, then move the media to another physical location, and start backing up on another media. Then after another week, swap the media again. This is for protection not only against system failure, but also a major catastrophe (like a fire, for example). A raid system would only protect against the former.
On the other hand, I did consider an external hard drive solution, i.e. buy two external firewire drives, and swap them back and forth every week or so, but a bulky external hard drive isn't quite as portable as a dvd disc, so that's a strike against that option.
As it stands, I'm still leaning towards the dvd solution because of the convenience and versatility factors (allows for use beyond simple backups, can be accessed just like a hard drive, portability), but I'd love to hear any more thoughts.
Oh, and a note on speed. From what I understand, DVD uses a different speed terminology than CD. For example, I believe (but don't quote me on this) a 1x DVD speed is roughly the same transfer rate as about a 8x CD speed. For example, the drive I'm looking at has a 1x DVD-RAM "Write Data Transfer Rate" of 1385KB with verifying. Compare this with (for example) Sony's CRX140E CD-RW data transfer rate of 1,200 kB/s Mode 1 (8X CD-R write/read).
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Matt G
The combo drive I mentioned (Panasonic LF-D311) I've seen on the web for as low as US$399 for the bare drive. I'm looking at a package that includes dvd authoring software and two discs (one 9.4gb dvd-ram & one 4.7 dvd-r) for about US$520.
That seems fairly reasonable.
I haven't really seen any tape backup systems that got me excited in this price range. I'd been using an "Onstream" system, but it crapped out a few months ago, just about the time the company closed its North American operations.
The way I like to protect my data is to do daily backups on one media for about a week, then move the media to another physical location, and start backing up on another media. Then after another week, swap the media again. This is for protection not only against system failure, but also a major catastrophe (like a fire, for example). A raid system would only protect against the former.
On the other hand, I did consider an external hard drive solution, i.e. buy two external firewire drives, and swap them back and forth every week or so, but a bulky external hard drive isn't quite as portable as a dvd disc, so that's a strike against that option.
As it stands, I'm still leaning towards the dvd solution because of the convenience and versatility factors (allows for use beyond simple backups, can be accessed just like a hard drive, portability), but I'd love to hear any more thoughts.
Oh, and a note on speed. From what I understand, DVD uses a different speed terminology than CD. For example, I believe (but don't quote me on this) a 1x DVD speed is roughly the same transfer rate as about a 8x CD speed. For example, the drive I'm looking at has a 1x DVD-RAM "Write Data Transfer Rate" of 1385KB with verifying. Compare this with (for example) Sony's CRX140E CD-RW data transfer rate of 1,200 kB/s Mode 1 (8X CD-R write/read).
--
Matt G
