Re: DVD Media Question Please

In article <pfOdnc0bO8AmlovanZ2dnUVZ_hynnZ2d@xxxxxxx>,
Dudley Henriques <dhenriques@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm probably a little paranoid about this, but having had a few CDs
malfunction (non-function?) a couple of years ago, even though they were
good brand names, only a couple years old, and had been stored properly
(moderate temperature, darkness, even low humidity), I always burn my
duplicate copy to a different brand than the original. I regard most of
the longevity claims with a skeptical eye. Pressed CDs and DVDs may
actually be forever, but my experiences have taught me that optical ones
are most certainly not.

Thank you very much for the reply. I appreciate it.

The plan is a simple one just to protect data files so a one shot burn
using finder is fine if I can do that without installing additional burn
software.
I'll simply be backing the documents folder once a week or so to a pair
of flash drives as an interim step that protects the files. Then when I
have a gig or two on the flash drives, I'll do a double burn to a
matched pair of DVD's. I'll get 8x DVD+R's on your recommendation for
this purpose.
Sound ok to you??
DH


David Empson wrote:
Dudley Henriques <dhenriques@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Intel IMac using OSX4.10.4. Burner is the Super drive.

Got a question;
I'm going to use DVD's for simple data backup and have read up on the
different types of media I can use. I'll probably be burning archives to
a DVD-R as I don't need re-write capability...just storage for data files.
I think I understand there isn't much difference between the - and +
formats for my purpose.

Not for an Intel Mac. If you had a much older model, it might only be
able to write to DVD-R.

DVD+R allegedly has some minor technical benefits for use on a computer,
but they are pretty esoteric and won't matter for your purposes.

For data file backups, readability on other drives is the only other
factor I can think of. DVD-R might be slightly more compatible with
other drives than DVD+R, but you could easily get variable compatibility
based on media and drive brands.


What methodology and software do you intend to use to write to the DVD-R
or DVD+R? If you just burn a DVD with Finder, you won't be able to write
to it again, so you need to collect everything to be burned and do it
all at once.

With some media types and the right software you _might_ be able to do
multi-session DVD burning. This is supported on CDs, but I haven't
explored doing this with DVDs. It wasn't originally supported and might
not be readable in other drives.

With special purpose backup software (like Retrospect) you can do packet
writing, which can do arbitrary sized chunks of data and keep adding
more data to a DVD-R until it gets full (at a later time). This sort of
DVD can only be read by the software which created it (Retrospect).

I believe the Super drive will burn to both (am I right here) but I need
to make the decision between the formats AND I don't know what speed to
buy.

All Intel iMacs with a Superdrive are rated at 8x. If you get 8x media
it will be able to write as fast as possible. You won't get a speed
benefit from 16x. If you use 4x or slower media, you will be forced to
burn at a lower speed.

You can choose to burn at a lower speed, which you might want to do to
improve reliability slightly.


Some side choices:

DVD-RW or DVD+RW media will let you erase and reuse the media. For an
archive this doesn't seem worthwhile.

DVD+R DL (dual layer) holds almost twice as much, but costs a lot more
than twice as much, so it isn't worth it unless you absolutely must burn
more than about 4.2 GB onto a single DVD.

Picking a good brand is a wise choice. I've yet to have any problems
with Verbatim CD or DVD media. I had some trouble with Imation CD-Rs a
few years ago but I've used some of their DVD-R media recently without
problems.

.

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