OT? Reliability of dual-layer DVD+R media

[Scott Anguish]

I've had pretty good success with DVD-R, and zero success with DVD+R DLs

Nada.  Zip. Not one has written successfully on any of the 3 machines  
I have that are capable of writing them.

On Apr 14, 2007, at 7:13 PM, Adam Bridge wrote:

> As I sit here writting a DVD+R I'm wondering how it fares as  
> archival storage.
>
> I'm a photographer. I back up images to RAID but I still move my best
> work off site. I'm always wrestling with best media to do the job.
>
>

	RAID is not a backup. Make sure you have current copies, on three  
different drives. Drives fail. And Google's research says it doesn't  
matter if they are expensive IT rated things or consumer grade.  Also,  
most raid drives fail pretty close together in time (Again, I think  
this was the Google whitepaper.. or maybe the other one that came out  
about the same time)

	Long term, I dunno how I'd do it.  I'd probably be sure to write to  
ISO-9660 formatted CDs and when the next big thing came along that was  
consistent and clearly long term (neither BluRay or HD-DVD are at this  
point) I'd move them to that format.

	What worries me most about DVDs are the fact that they have dual  
layers. They have that little space between the two layers, and I have  
concerns (perhaps unfounded) about de-lamination over time.

	I have 2 small portable drives that I back the family pictures (and  
my 'insurance' information - list of DVDs, CDs, stuff that is  
expensive to replace as a complete set) up on, and one is always at  
the bank in the safety deposit box. Ideally they should be swapped out  
more often than the once a month I do it. There is also a backup done  
locally on a separate server as well. This gives me my three copies.  
and the one is always pretty much current.

	I do all my backups either directly in the native file-system format  
as full restores, or onto encrypted disk images.  I wouldn't touch  
Retrospect or anything that uses it's own format with a ten foot pole.

	I don't trust tape.  I lost a drive for Stepwise once about 10 years  
ago. In spite of verifying every time on the DAT, the restores were  
useless. If it wasn't for people who had archived the pages,  
everything would have been lost.