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Posted by Rod Speed on 03/22/06 00:09
Carl Lowenstein <cdl@deeptow.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> In article <121vnvca9kck311@news.supernews.com>,
> Ken Moiarty <kmoiarty35@shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Well guys, I finally found my 'holy grail' robot to physically
>> automate CD/DVD disc spanning for backup purposes. No I'm not
>> talking about one of those office copier sized machines that only
>> institutions can get enough use out of to get a return on their
>> institutional sized investment. However, it does come from that
>> "industrial/institutional" category. Yet it is the first of such
>> products I've seen that a consumer like myself could talk myself
>> into buying (admittedly, though, with my eyes closed) It's the MF
>> Digital Baxter Automated CD DVD Duplicator. But it doesn't just
>> duplicate or make disc copies. It's primarily what's they call an
>> "autodisc loader". It can be used in any of many different ways,
>> including spanning DVD discs for backup data. And the price is an
>> almost down to earth $839.00. Admittedly more than most large hard
>> drives are sold for today. But for that price you can't backup to
>> tape cartridge of much quanitity. It holds up to 25 discs at a
>> time, robotically moving discs into and out of write drives as
>> needed. That's roughly 115 GB (or if you use DVD-R dual layer or
>> DVD+R double-layer discs, approximately 210 GB) per unattended
>> backup session. I would personally have no problem reloading the
>> unit with fresh discs as often as two or three or more times if
>> necessary, to backup all hard drive images in my computer to DVD-RW,
>> DVD-RAM or whatever. I could load up and start the backup process
>> before I leave for work. Come home after work and repeat the
>> process. Do the same at bedtime (if still necessary by now) to
>> complete the backup. (I don't know if it can write to BD disks, but
>> if it and/or when it does, once BD disc prices become affordable the
>> 25 disc capacity will no longer pose any potential mild
>> inconvenience whatsoever, and total backups to DVD will be able to
>> routinely started and completed automatically according to schedule
>> with only the most infrequent and briefest of human intervention.)
>
> Minor practical problem: since all DVDs look alike, except perhaps
> for a slight difference on one side between recorded and blank, how
> do you propose to keep all of your backups organized?
Just serial number the DVDs and keep track
of the first and last used in a particular backup.
Not a shred of rocket science required at all.
> You are lost in a twisty maze of DVDs, all alike.
Fraid not.
>> I would still use a large external hard drive for completely
>> hands off routine nightly backup of course. But every few weeks at
>> most I could do this redundant DVD backup as well for a
>> complementary kind of redundancy not far from totally secure data
>> backup. And I could even easily make automated disk copies of my
>> backup DVDs for even more backup redundancy. Hence, for the first
>> time I could consider what gets stored in my computer to be safer
>> from loss than that which I presently print paper hard copies of so
>> as to file in a physical filing cabinet (e.g. banking transactions,
>> software purchases, etc...etc...).
>>
>> Heres the link:
>> http://www.proactionmedia.com/proddetail.asp?prod=E5910
>
>
> carl
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