Using CD And DVD Discs To Backup Your Important Files
For portability, archiving, and in some situations backups, CD or DVD discs can be useful. The drives are ubiquitous, the media cheap and easy to deal with.
Bear in mind however that the media are also more fragile than some people think and they do somewhat degrade over time.
We’re all for saving dough but don’t be penny wise and pound foolish here: When using CD or DVD disks for backup or storage, do not go cheap.
Go with a major brand you know (TDK, Maxell, other well-known media companies) and if you can afford it, go for discs that are packaged as gold, archival, or similar. Unlike a lot of marketing scams (premium gas, anyone?) the differences between junky digital media and high-end stuff is very real.
Cheap CDs will often not read or write properly, they are more sensitive to scratches, heat, and dust, they use inferior metals for the data surface and inferior plastics for the disc itself.
When the difference between junk that will have you tearing your hair out and the best stuff you can get is about 40 cents a disc for crap or 75 cents to a buck a disc for good stuff…forget the percentages and get the better discs.
Discs are good for storing data but not so good for keeping prying eyes away from it.
Your Security Options — Beyond Passwords
Passwords are OK but if you want real protection, you want biometrics. Surprisingly, this is now no more expensive than a dinner in most cities. See Resources section for more.
Your Security/Platform Options — Remote storage
For extremely important files that you may need to access from anywhere at anytime, there are a number of ways to utilize the Internet for storage. You might even want to keep some things only online.
A “quick and dirty” solution is to open one or several free email accounts and email important things to yourself. This is easy and cheap but you will usually be limited to 1—2 GB of storage. That’s a whole lot of Word docs but only a few minutes of high-def video, so consider what you need to store.
X Drive has several programs but the basic service is 5GB of storage for $10 per month. They also have a free trial of the 5GB option. (Try and get a free trial on any hardware system).