What is you favorite method to back up your data files?

I have a cd burner, a zip drive and 3.5" floppy drive and several years ago I managed to buy about 6 or 7 hundred 3.5" floppies for nothing. They were all "buy the box of 100 and get your money back via mail in rebate". Consequently, most of my data back ups are on floppy, but the number of floppies is rapidly growing.

I have burned 2 cd's in my life time and have never used the zip drive at all so I'm seeking wisdom and guidance from more computer literate beings.

Thanks

Steve

Steve,

I am a certified charter member of the Anal Retentive Association of America. That should give you a clue as to what I do.

First, watch for a sale or one of those mail in rebate deals on cd-roms. Get a stack of 'em. Then you're ready.

1. I have two hard drives in this computer so, first, I back up to the secondary hard drive. 1 copy.

2. I then use my CD burner and copy everything to the CD. 2 copies.

However, the way Nathan constructed the building of the databases it is a snap to rebuild the whole thing from scratch, unless you have 2 or 300 MBs.

I do have a Jaz drive (or whatever the danged thing is called) but I don't use it because I hate that thing. It's not even hooked up right now. Burn the CD - forget all that floppy swapping.

Hit a big one,

Bob

Floppies cost about 2.7 cents to produce. You get what you pay for. Some places consider 19 failures out of a hundred as acceptable in QC at the factory. I get customers that call our call center all day long with floppy backups that have failed. I cannot remember the last time a customer called with a CD that failed. As long as its put in a jewel case it will last up to 30 years. Floppies have movable parts. The CD Rom doesn't. Basic engineering. CDR's are so cheap nowadays......no excuse not to use them. FYI

I back up to a read write CD (R - W - CD). They are used same as a big floppy disk. Read RW CD's are good for thousand uses. When that is full (650 Mb) then I transfer everything from it to a CD - R. R's are cheap but the catch is it can only be written to once.
Also use the store on two hard drive method. One on the desktop and one on the laptop. Zip disks could be used as a secondary back up also.

My impressions:

CD-RW is dangerous. I use mine for taking project to and from work. No critical backups on RW (read/write). I have had numerous RW disks fail. I usually use directCD to write to them as if they were a "big floppy".

Zip Type Drives. I hate them, loathe them, they disgust me. I bought a 1 gig cartridge drive (I've banned the company name from my memory) for 350$ a number of years ago with 4 disks. I was supposed to get a 150$ mail in rebate (another thing I hate...). 3 months later the company went bankrupt. 2 months later one of my disks died. A month after that the drive died. Still waiting on that rebate, yuck-yuck.

CDR -- love it. And, if you don't close the disk, you can write to any free space left on the disk at a later date.

-Nathan

Nathan,

You said:

"Zip Type Drives. I hate them, loathe them, they disgust me. I bought a 1 gig cartridge drive (I've banned the company name from my memory) for 350$ a number of years ago with 4 disks. I was supposed to get a 150$ mail in rebate (another thing I hate...). 3 months later the company went bankrupt. 2 months later one of my disks died. A month after that the drive died. Still waiting on that rebate, yuck-yuck."

As a gesture of goodwill, Nathan, I'd be happy to send you another one of those 1 gig deals. After I replied to Steve I went in the other office and, hey, I've got one of the smaller ones too. I don't know what it's called either but you can have that one too if you want. It makes a nice high-tech paperweight, but that's about it.

CD-R is the only way to go. I've got some of the RWs but, for some reason, I've never even used one. Have no idea why. Leaving it open so the balance can be used is the only way for working. I do close music CD-Rs but I've only done two of those.

My trash could be your treasure,

Bob

Gosh, Bob, that's big of you -- but I'm still waiting for my 2 fifty dollar horses .

No doubt, that drive is a SyQuest (ooo, I said it). Little difference, from what I understand Iomega is pretty lousy too. Its like Ralph said in a previous post -- moving parts.

-N

Nathan,

THIS SHALL SERVE AS OFFICIAL NOTICE OF FULFILLMENT

On this date I have just now shipped you two $50 horses. They should arrive via FedEx tomorrow morning. Since shipping was not included, FedEx advises the cost for shipping both horses collect to be "in the neighborhood" of $1,600 as this is a bit unusual cargo for them.

This is to cover the costs of crating, feed, shovel, and steam to clean the shipping container after arrival. Please be on the lookout tomorrow morning for your horses.

Honest Bob

p.s. FedEx says they won't accept checks for collect shipping - they want cash and prefer it in denominations of $20, or less. Their drivers do not carry change

Thanks, gang. Not only for the cd back up advice but also for the inspirational thoughts, comments and other advice you threw in!

Steve

I am seeing/hearing all the glowing reports on "ver 3.5" ..but I never see any "selections" for any current cards, or other reports specically, using any version...how is anyone doing using any version ??? isn't there a spot for posting current "selections" to be able to compare handicapping ideas ?? "0"