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CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R & DVD-RW Backup
Backing your critical data up on CD or DVD is risky business -- disks can easily be damaged by routine use or natural disaster, lost or stolen. CD and DVD backups are rarely taken offsite, and are not secure, automated or full featured.
1. Affordability: Endless Media Expenses
- CD-R drives cost about $40; CD-RW drives cost $80-120;
- 700 MB CDs cost about $.50 each (lower quality = more failure prone).
- CD-RW disks are about $1 each but are considerably less reliable with each recording and are not recommended for long-term or archival use.
- DVD-R and DVD-RW drives cost $150-250;
- DVD-R disks cost about $1 each.
- DVD-RW disks are about $2 each but are considerably less reliable with each recording and are not recommended for long-term or archival use.
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2. Reliability: Failure-Prone Media
- CDs and DVDs are notoriously failure-prone, vulnerable to degradation by the environment (oxygen, heat, sunlight, humidity, liquids, dust) and human mishandling (scratched, cracked, bent, misplaced, etc.).
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3. Data Protection: Not Offsite is Not Alright
- Unless they're taken offsite every night (which rarely happens regularly), CD and DVD backups fail to protect data offsite against natural disasters (fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, lightning, solar flares, earthquakes), not to mention theft, disgruntled workers and sabotage.
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4. Data Security: Portable Media = Inherent Risks
- Where do you store your CD and DVD backups -- a safety deposit box, a glove compartment, a purse, a night stand, or you don't know?
- Is your data encrypted or even password protected?
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5. Convenience: Manual Process
- Daily CD and DVD backup administration is time-consuming manual process requiring human interaction (inserting disks, selecting files or running backup software, labeling & cataloging, taking offsite, etc.). CD-RWs and DVD-RWs are usually limited to 4x burn speed.
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6. DVD / CD Capacity: Limiting and Cumbersome
- CDs are limited to 700 MB of space, which is hard to manage if you have more critical data than that (more than likely), and even more frustrating if you have a file larger than that.
- DVDs are limited to 4.7 GB of space.
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7. Remote File Access: Not Available
- You can only access your data backed up on CD or DVD through your local network if the disk is in the drive and shared. You may be down for a full day if you store your backups offsite.
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8. File Versioning: Complicated and Unreliable
- Finding and accessing specific data backed up on CD or DVD can a hassle, and does not utilize the efficiency of delta block incrementals.
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9. Full System Backup: Cumbersome, Failure Prone
- Backing up your full system to a CD or DVD requires specialized software and multiple disks. Recovery typically is an extremely cumbersome, time intensive and failure-prone process.
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10. Support: Nowhere to Run
- What will you do when a backup CD or DVD storing data you desperately need to recover no longer works, can't be found or is destroyed along with your PC?
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