[Gllug] re: backups

[Christopher Hunter]

On Sunday 05 Sep 2004 10:44 am, will wrote:
> Alain Williams wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 05, 2004 at 10:16:59AM +0100, Russell Howe wrote:
> >>I'm sure I read something somewhere about writers laying down better
> >>quality tracks if you run them more slowly. Possibly a concern if you
> >>wish your discs to be readable by as wide a range of drives as possible.
> >
> > Confirmation of this would be good. If you are writing a backup (to be
> > potentially/hopefully readable in a few years time) then an extra hour
> > in the writing is not really significant -- especially if it happens
> > overnight.
>
> I had also heard this, but have seen no actual proof, I would be very
> interested to hear if it is true.

I found that some brands of CD retain data better than other (cheaper) ones.  
Avoid "vivastar" manufactured media at all costs - some of these fail in just 
a couple of months.  These disks get rebranded as the cheap (and nasty) 
"generic" CDs available in PC World (amongst others).  This may well hold 
true for DVDs as well.

I tried a number of experiments with the nasty disks - writing at various 
speeds, as I'd heard that slower write speeds could lead to better data 
retention.  Reducing the write speed DID have a marginal effect, and could 
just be the difference between a usable disk and a shiny beer mat. 

This is yet another case of "you get what you pay for"!  I now only use 
branded disks.

Chris

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