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DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives

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DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives
Is anyone familiar with these?

I am thinking about buying one. It would primarily be used for backing up user files on my home office machine (I have around 4 gb of files/docs).

The one I'm looking at is a DVD-RAM/DVD-R combo from Panasonic (LF-D311). This is a little overkill for straight backups, but the DVD-R is supposed to allow mastering of DVDs you can play on a regular DVD player (I think). A neat little extra for some added flexibility.

Anyway, most of the stuff I've come across trying to research this is woefully outdated (I'm talking 2-3 *years*). So, anyone have any thoughts? Would this be a good daily backup solution for 5-10gb of data? Anything else out there? (another possibility I'm considering is the Iomega Peerless with 10 & 20gb cartridges... but the DVD solution, while smaller capacity, seems more versatile to me...)

PS: Oh, and for anyone who's used DVD-RAM, for the double-sided discs, does the drive read both sides or is it necessary to flip the disc?

Thanks for any advice!

(For anyone interested, there is a brief overview about the different DVD formats at CNet
http://computers.cnet.com/...txt.1091-8-6270835-5)

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Matt G
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Re: [mglaspie] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
friend has a dvd-ram in his machine and he uses his cdr more. At first he thought it was cool and spent more money on the Built-to-Order machine but he rarely uses it since speed burning is the big factor.

although dvd movies are a consideration.

hmmm ... how about just a back HD raid system ... another friend after having his wintel machine fry -- HD included decieded to go that way ... although win ME doesn't like the setup very much he's limited to win 2000 pro.

I use MOs but 640meg capacity is a little skimpy for almost anything these days.

just a few thoughts....

openoffice + gimp + sketch ... Smile
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Re: [mglaspie] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
Can you buy me one too while you're at it?

I haven't really been reading up on DVD-R's and such, so I would have no clue how they work w/ computers and normal consumer players. These are what they're selling here locally:
Quote:
Pioneer DVD-R/RW: (DVR-A03 ) DVD, DVD-R (4.7GB for general disk), DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW. (retail) $860
HP DVD-R/RW ( DVD100i ) 12X10X32X CD-RW / 2X2X8X DVD-RW ATAPI Drive $860
Prices in canadian dollars. I wonder how much the disks cost Smile

A little costly if you ask me. I'd rather go with a tape backup system. You could get a new tape backup system for about half that price, plus tapes are cheap...


Adrian
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Re: [brewt] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
aren't those the superdrives ??? apple put those into this year's new G4 machines ...

I'd go with just a regular dvd-ram ...

In the land of SONY ... they run about US $ 400 sometimes you can find em on yahoo auction for about US$ 200 used (single sided that is) ... I'm not sure but the first generations were only single sided. I think that the newer versions should be smart enough to burn both sides ... but speeds are like 4x at the most ...

1 3-4 gig ??? blank run US $30 - 40 while a 10 pack of cdr 640 run about US$ 6



openoffice + gimp + sketch ... Smile
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Re: [QooQ] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
Thanks for the replies. Smile

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
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Re: [mglaspie] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
Hmm... DVD-RAM != DVD-R right? It seems to me that DVD-RAM is only compatible with computers (and probably just the burner) and DVD-R is compatible with consumer players as well as regular DVD drives. That's why that Panasonic drive is cheap compared to the ones i quoted above (which are DVD-R burners).

You can actually get that Pansonic DVD-RAM drive for cheaper than $399. I it see on [url=http://www.pricewatch.com]pricewatch[/url] for ~$300 for the drive and software (OEM though). I still think a tape backup solution is better for daily backups, though a good tape backup can be costly (none of that Onstream, Iomega crap Wink Like a Seagate DDS3 (12/24G) SCSI tape backup goes for ~$300, but these things are made for daily backups (ie. more reliable), and faster (like ~1MB/s uncompressed).

I must say owning a DVD-RAM/DVD-R would have it's coolness factor to it Tongue


Adrian
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Re: [brewt] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
I've used nothing but tape drives for back-ups and that is IMHO the only way to go. Prices have gotten so cheap that you should get yourself a fairly good tape drive. You can now get DATs that hold 12gb (uncompressed) and that should be plenty for any small business or home operation.

Here is what I've learned from personal experience (and much gnashing of teeth):

(In a small business, or if you do work at home for pay)

1. Do full back-ups daily - incrementals are "the big lie".
2. Maintain a library of approx 20-30 tapes.
3. Save a tape every week as a permanent archive copy.
4. Take a tape 'off site' every week, so if your house/office burns down you don't lose more than a week's worth of work.
5. Have a good 'disaster recovery' plan, including serial numbers and model numbers of all your equipment stored off site. (We've had computers stolen and I learned this the hard way.)

Don't think it can happen to you? A pipe burst in our office building one Christmas eve and flooded two floors. All of our equipment was ruined. We had a back-up tape (actually it was several tapes back then) and were up and running the next day. Another time while attempting to install a new drive I managed to crash a netware server so hard and bad that it couldn't be repaired (all hail vrepair) and I had to tell 30 users that I lost 2 weeks worth of database, accounting and word processing files. It was not a happy day.

Of course it's still not as sexy as a DVD-R..Wink



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Re: [brewt] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
That's correct, DVD-RAM is not the same as DVD-R. DVD-RAM is basically a hard drive on DVD. You need a DVD-RAM drive to read one. DVD-R is what you could put in a consumer player after you master it. (DVD-R media is only write-able once.) The Panasonic I mention is a COMBO drive that uses and writes to BOTH formats. That's why I find it appealing.

Now, there is yet *another* format called DVD+RW which an alliance of companies led by HP, Sony, and Philips is trying to get established as the standard. Although, it looks to me that the DVD-RAM has a pretty strong foothold...

One of the two products you mentioned, the HP, is this other format. Both are "combo" drives, but in these cases the "combo" is that they can record either DVD-RW (I think this is a re-writable version of DVD-R and very new, but with compatibility issues) and DVD+RW respectively, but can also burn CD's (which normal DVD-RAMs cannot). I already have a CD-RW drive, so that feature is not important to me.

Do you really think a tape would be more reliable than a DVD? I'm thinking of just the physical characterstics here... seems like the DVD would be more resistant to environmental factors, plus you're supposed to be able to re-write to a DVD-RAM like 100,000 times... And, isn't 1385KB/s slightly faster than 1MB/s?

Hmm.. you saw it on pricewatch for ~$300? That's where I looked, but didn't see it that low... I'll have to check again more carefully.

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Matt G
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Re: [Watts] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
Watts, sorry I have a habit of starting a reply and then going off to do something else, only to come back a half hour later to finish it... thus, I did not see your reply until after I posted mine.Smile

Some interesting and important points... thanks for the input.

Would you say, then, that the major advantages of tapes over dvds would be cost and storage capacity?

Do you recommend a certain brand/product number?

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Matt G
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Re: [mglaspie] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
It's not so much the drive, but the software that'll bite you on the butt. I was using ArcServe at my old job and it was expensive ($800) and tech support was terrible and also expensive (only free for 90 days from first incident). It was a bitch to install and get the Netware drivers just right and was tempermental. When it worked - it worked well. When it didn't - it'd crash your server 'bigger than Dallas'. It's the same old story: it was a good product until they got bought by another company (computer associates - yuk yuk phooey) and then service went to hell.

Right now I'm using the default back up program that comes with NT, it's free (with the OS) but you can't set a timer to make it start at 1am or something like you can with the Win98 backup program. And of course it's not as robust as something like ArcServe for handling open files, etc. But it does the job for me.

You pretty much can't go wrong with sony as far the drive goes, however I don't remember what model ours is. It uses the 4mm DDS 3 tapes though, and now you can get them for like $15 (?).

As far as hardiness, tapes do wear out & break. Our Eagle NS8 drive used to eat tapes right and left and at about $40 per tape it added up quickly.

Good Luck!

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Re: [Watts] DVD-RAM/DVD-R Drives In reply to
I am looking to buy a DVD+-R/RW drive. Not too pricey. Any ideas ?
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