CD-Rs

[CurlieQCarrie]

Okay...maybe this is a dumb question, but here goes...If I want to put some documents onto a cd-r disc, does it HAVE TO say 'data' on the label or can I just use a regular one?

http://curlieqcarrie.friendpages.com/
When life has handed you lemons, remember to ask for tequila and salt!

[PN]

Carrie, this is a good question. Any documents, files or folders that you cannot afford to lose should be backed up on to CD-R or CD-RW. Both will have the storage capacity of 650MB. You can only use a CD-R one time, to save your data. The CD-RW is sort of like videotape because it will allow you to write over your previous data if necessary. An external hard drive is another good alternative to backing up your programs. Let us know if you have any further questions.

PN

[Hunker]

Carrie, what do you mean "data" on the label? you an copy data and your pictures but do not finalize the disk because you may not be able to add more data. I'm still not good at it so buy a lot of cds so you can practice. I stated with music and found it would not play in my truck but would on the computer. Same with data so doot erase your hard drive data until you try it on another computer.
btw your black an white pics were nice http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif
Matt

[jimnms]

Thanks to RIAA, there are data and music CD-R's. Technically there is no difference in the two. The "data" disks are cheaper because the "music" CDs have a tax placed on them. You can still make music CDs with a "data" CD.

The "music" CD-Rs have some kind of tag that is read by those stand alone music CD burners. If you have one of those stand alone music burners, you can only use the CD-Rs that are designated as a "music" disk.

BTW, it isn't recommended using rewritable CDs (CD-RW) for long term storage. CD-Rs will last longer but aren't re-usable. If you're going to be making regular backups then the rewritable are fine, but if you're going to burn it and lock it away in a safe place then stick to a regular CD-R.

_____
Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

[Hunker]

Is it true that cdrw's wear out after they are formatted 8x's plus?
Matt

[CurlieQCarrie]

Paul,
By external harddrive, do you mean a USB drive? I was looking into getting one of those to save all of my school and homeowrk files on.

http://curlieqcarrie.friendpages.com/
When life has handed you lemons, remember to ask for tequila and salt!

[PN]

Hello Carrie:

The external hard drive will either be USB2.0, FireWire or both. It is portable and you will be able to save all your files/homework. I will probably be purchasing an external hard drive in a few months. At this point in time, all of my data is backed up on three different computers and two of the computers, have two hard drives in them. I also back up my files and folders on to CD-R disc.
http://images10.newegg.com/ProductImageCompressAll125/22-154-623-03.JPG
Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=22-154-623&DEPA=0)

PN

[jimnms]

Is it true that cdrw's wear out after they are formatted 8x's plus?
Matt

CD-RWs will eventually wear out, but not after 8 formats. I've got some I've rewritten to hundreds of times. Most will guarantee 100,000 rewrites, which is actually alot more than you'd get out of an old floppy.

By external harddrive, do you mean a USB drive? I was looking into getting one of those to save all of my school and homeowrk files on.

There are external USB hard drives, and USB flash drives, also sometimes called "thumb drives." You can buy a kit like the one paul linked to that has a hard drive already in it. I bought just an external USB enclosure and stuck in a spare 80GB hard drive I had sitting around and I use it for backups. This (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-355&depa=1) is a newer version of the one I have.

I wouldn't recommend carrying a hard drive around in your backpack for homework. If you drop your backpack, it could dammage the drive, plust you would also have to carry the USB cables and power cords. A USB flash drive, like this one (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-189-011&depa=1) would be better suited for storing homework on, but isn't ideal for long term backups.

_____
Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

[teyrn]

Originally posted by jimnms:

Is it true that cdrw's wear out after they are formatted 8x's plus?
Matt

CD-RWs will eventually wear out, but not after 8 formats. I've got some I've rewritten to hundreds of times. Most will guarantee 100,000 rewrites, which is actually alot more than you'd get out of an old floppy.

By external harddrive, do you mean a USB drive? I was looking into getting one of those to save all of my school and homeowrk files on.

There are external USB hard drives, and USB flash drives, also sometimes called "thumb drives." You can buy a kit like the one paul linked to that has a hard drive already in it. I bought just an external USB enclosure and stuck in a spare 80GB hard drive I had sitting around and I use it for backups. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-355&depa=1 is a newer version of the one I have.

I wouldn't recommend carrying a hard drive around in your backpack for homework. If you drop your backpack, it could dammage the drive, plust you would also have to carry the USB cables and power cords. A USB flash drive, like http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-189-011&depa=1 would be better suited for storing homework on, but isn't ideal for long term backups.

_____
Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.I have a couple of those external hard drive enclosures I used to mount my IDE hard drives in when I dumped my desktop and went to a laptop. I was using one to go back and forth with from work but it is a bit heavy when you add a laptop that weighs 12+lbs and the power supply wich is over 5lbs as well. The USB thumb drives at the time were around 512MB and too small for some of the things I needed to transport about but soon as the 1GB thumbdrives came out I got 2 and no longer tote the hard drive about. My brouther in Huston used to use zip disks at one school but when he transfered to another school or used a diff computer he had to find one with a zip drive or copy the data to cd to be able to use it. Now he too has a 1GB thumbdrive and it can be used on any pc or mac. I love them, they are so versitile.

http://www.tuath.org/files/sig.jpg

[McDuff]

How long will the USB thumbdrives keep data stored safely?

McD

"Rather be ridin' than rollin'"

[garvey]

I had a load of old IDE drives from retired machines with data I needed. The USB device I had been using died - I went down to my local trusty PC Warehouse franchise and they sold me a no-name replacement for $50. Works fine and I have all my old financial data!

[teyrn]

Originally posted by McDuff:

How long will the USB thumbdrives keep data stored safely?

McD

"Rather be ridin' than rollin'"You know that is a good question. In theory the data should be safe for the life of the microchips that is storing the data. We know this doesn't always hold true though. I would think it would be more stable then the data stored on optical disks like CD DVD's. Since light, temprature, humidity deteriorate the surface and the fact the surface breaks down on its own over time.

http://www.tuath.org/files/sig.jpg

[CurlieQCarrie]

I went today and bought a USB flashdrive. I am excited to not have to worry about working on something at home and not having the file with me anymore! *sigh* http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif

http://curlieqcarrie.friendpages.com/
When life has handed you lemons, remember to ask for tequila and salt!

[PN]

Carrie, congratulations and good luck with school!

PN

[CurlieQCarrie]

Thanks Paul. My media writing class this semester is working with Macs so i am sure I'll have quite a few questions posted around here. http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/wink.gif I'm a little Mac illiterate.

http://curlieqcarrie.friendpages.com/
When life has handed you lemons, remember to ask for tequila and salt!

[jimnms]

Originally posted by McDuff:

How long will the USB thumbdrives keep data stored safely?

USB thumbdrives use flash ram to store data. It requires no power to store the data, so in theory it should stay on there forever. Since flash ram is pretty expensive, it's not economical to use for permanant backups.

I saw an article testing the durability of compact flash cards used in digital cameras. They are pretty tough. They wrote data to several cards, and tortured the crap out of them, and in all but a few of the tests they were able to recover the data.

I don't remember what tests actually destroyed the data, but they survived being washed in a washing machine, put in a dryer, run over by a car, and even nailed to a tree.

_____
Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

[tvot]

Speaking of CD-R's, anyone know of a reliable company/manufacturer. I was just going through some of my 200 CD's and noticed 5 will not play.
I haven't taken them out of the player yet to try on my PC's player, they are Memorex and are only a year or two old.
The older 650 meg. (Imation I think)CD's are still playing fine.
Any suggestions? do companies change their manufacturers often, I've had good luck with Memorex in the past. The CD's played fine the last time I listened.
From what I've read on the internet it seems like alot of hype, Ritek is supposed to be the big deal but I found an early 97 article that states different.

[jimnms]

I try to avoid memorex if possible. I have had nothing but trouble with their media, except some old 4x CD-RWs that still work.

Here is some good reading for CD/DVD media:
http://www.cdrfaq.org/
http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/issue12.html
http://www.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.videohelp.com/ - Mainly about DVD-R/RW and seems to be down right now.

_____
Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.