Re: imaging software--disk dupers/MDISC etc

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

That's a super-important point: physical redundancy. That's another
reason I think mdisc-type optical media is the answer. Blu-Ray is
not yet available, though it has been promised for a long time.
But if you were able to put 25 GB of backups onto one BluRay, it
would be (comparatively) easy and economical to spread these write-once
backups around the world. 


By the way, someone is about to send me a hard drive full of valuable
data from the US to the UK. What do I need to know to ensure it gets here
safely ?


At 29/10/2013 15:55, you wrote:



On 29/10/13 2:10 PM, Harry Binswanger wrote:

> I would think 4 would be more than sufficient.

> 

> Just an idea. I'm not pretending to be a storage/backup expert.

 The three golden rules of back ups are:


Redundancy, redundancy, and redundancy.


Three physically separate media at three separate locations. One

digital copy, one hard copy, and something else in a different
format

to the other two. Example: file on an external HD, printout (OCR

scanable), file on CD or DVD. I recall one of my students assuring
me

he had three physically separate copies. Turns out they were all on

HDs in the building's cellar. That was the year the Elbe River
flooded

their basement. All date lost.


In principle, you must protect against four main hazards: fire,
flood,

war, and bit rot. Copying the same file to 10 identical HDs does not

protect against bit rot. If there were some technical failure in the

manufacturing process for that series of HDs, it could affect all
ten

drives at roughly the same time in the future.


Cheers,