🚀 go-pugleaf

In <3mfcn4$mc9@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au>, dean@psy.uq.oz.au (Dean Povey) writes:
>guru@deltanet.com  (Bill Schultz) writes:

[deleted]

>>Also, I was scanning the ads yesterday, and I saw a local computer store
>>advertising a CD-ROM maker for under $2,000.  That (finally) makes CD-ROM
>>practical as a backup medium.....

>Haven't been following this debate, but bear in mind that CD's are write once
>and so the cost of the media must be taken into consideration.  The price of 
>the mastering system may well be in line with DAT, Exabyte etc drives.  But
>if you use (for example) 1 CD a day, at a rough price of $A15 a CD (that's the
>price I have seen).  You are looking at $A5475 a year for media.
>
>Now do you still think that CD is an effective backup media?
>
>NB: $A1 approx = $US0.70

As a "backup media?"  YES!  Definitely.

Remember, there is absolutely no need to put your copy of Microsoft Whatever
on your CD every day.  You only put "new" data, or data files that are in some
way altered.

Also, most CD systems I have examined have the ability to write only pieces of
a CD, as opposed to being required to write the whole CD in one shot, or nothing
at all.

Given those conditions, then, to require a new and different CD each and every
day, you would have to be generating and/or modifying 700 MB or more (how
much more would depend on compression, as a "backup media" is surely a
compressed media) of data each day.  That kind of data processing application
can surely afford the cost associated with the creation of a long lasting record
of all of the data.  (Also, your total indicates 365 days a year of usage, which
is also quite unusual for anything but a 24x7 type of operation, which again
would implicate an organization whose data is "mission critical.")

Of course, in a more typical environment, you would generate some fraction of
a CD on a work-daily or weekly basis.  This might generate more like 10-25 CDs
per year.

However, all of this results from my personal bias in favor of saving backup
media "forever."  I still have backup tapes from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, even
though the equipment to read them is, in many cases, long deceased.  You
see, you never know when a new thread will pop up on alt.folklore.computers
which might require me to shout:  "Yes is IS so, and I have the data tape right
here which would prove it, if only you could read it!"

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|     Bill Schultz     A Warped Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.....
|                                     Use OS/2 Warp: Waste Not, Want Not.....