What CD to use to back up picture files?

[highquality]

I need to back up my photos. Many are in RAW format. what kind of cd do I buy? DVD + R or DVD + RW or what other kind?:eek2:

 

[Sk8r]

DVD or CD? THere's a difference. And what your drive is makes a difference. Some want one thing, some want another. Go to your drive manufacturer's site and see what the requirements are. If I were interested in permanent storage, no need to spring for the more expensive read-write [RW] discs. Personally, I'm betting the CDs remain readable by future machines, while I'm not so sure about the current mismash of DVD storage.

 

[gregr]

I suggest you look into archiving on harddrives and not cds or dvds. Since I switched a couple years ago not one dreaded red x has shown up- but with the cds and dvds... many bad files
Aside from that issue- hard drives are sooo much faster. Just my opinion of course.

 

[kryppy]

CD's are more reliable then DVD's, that is for sure. If it is important stuff make two or three whatever you choose.
With USB hard drives getting so cheap these days, I would (do) go with that.

 

[highquality]

The reason why im doing this is because the computor says itsw time to backup . My computor virtual memory has been low a few time also and it notified me it was creating more memory. So I would need to buy a plug in hard drive? Is that what we are talking about?

 

[gregr]

Yep. Do you have USB2 ports on your computer? I like Seagates but I don't know what's the best/most reliable/best deal- those are just what I use. Also, the link is random- that's what came up first in my google search

 

[gregr]

Scratch that- the link I gave you is to an internal drive- that's not what you want. You want an external drive.
This drive is what I use.

 

[BlueCorn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8385814#post8385814 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gregr
I suggest you look into archiving on harddrives and not cds or dvds. Since I switched a couple years ago not one dreaded red x has shown up- but with the cds and dvds... many bad files
Aside from that issue- hard drives are sooo much faster. Just my opinion of course.

Yup. I keep photo archived on a couple of separate drives. One that I carry with my laptop to backup immediately after shooting and another at my office. I use Aperture for my pics and it uses a concept of a "vault" for backups. When I start the application it tells me how many pictures aren't in my vaults but in my main library. All I have to do is click a button and it syncs up the changes between what's on my main drive and what's in my vault.

CDs/DVDs are way to slow to me practical and they have a limited life-span.

 

[CodeToad]

External USB or firewire HD's are so inexpensive these days it's easy to pick up one (or more) to do a monthly routine backup in a matter of minutes.

 

[Ebn]

I use Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs, but there are archival DVDs out there as well.

I go through hard drive space like no tomorrow and have to back up pretty often.