Considering reliability, $/G, portability, what is your choice and why?

I choose DVD. As it is available and the $/G is 'acceptable'. Would one choose SSD over DVD as it has 'lesser' moving parts? I cannot google any info about reliability as well life expectancy for Ext HD, SSDrive vs DVD burning. TIA,

bun

Blu-Ray?

For music, you are not going to need rewritable data, so CD/DVD is best.

SSD has worst life, I don't know about DVD or Hard Drive.

You could try a 64GB SD card, then it would all be in your pocket in a nice tablet format, but expensive.

is that related to the stored charge eventually running out?

The stored charge only applies to ROM and RAM, and other volatile memory.

FLASH is a non-volatile memory, so it lasts for "ever".

SSD have a very limited read-write life cycle. Its fine for casual use, and has no moving parts/faster. But about 20x more expensive than Hard Disk.

For music, just go with a thumb drive or SD card (which are types of SSD, which are expensive), or Hard Disk (which are big and power consuming).

DVD, too meh... They need a DVD drive, only 4.7 GB, etc...

Blu-Ray would be nice because they are 25 or 50 GB, but not everyone has it!

I'd choose harddisk. It's the fastest and you can backup regularly.
Use 2 harddisks to make 2 backups. That's even more safe in case one harddisk breaks.
Considering portability, use 2" USB harddisk. They're usually USB-powered, so that you don't have to carry an extra power cord.

Thanks for everybody's comments. It helps in making decision on media in a big backup.

Yes. I have been using 2.5" HD. They are very nice, small footprint, able to put in your shirt pocket. There are comments that they break easily. Of course if we know that the platters are separated by space smaller than human hair? As long as you are careful with it, I guess they are alright. I recently got 2 of them and are doing exactly pycage suggested, bu 2 times. I was wondering about those 'huge' HD, now you can get a 2 TG for $239, USB or eSATA, they are convenient but too many eggs in 1 basket. I rather take 2 medium size than 1 big size.

On top of the HD backups, I still burn them to DVD. Why? dont know, just dont quite trust HD. I know, I know, I am paranoid, but it never cost me anything timewise to burn a DVD. I pick the mp3s that is NOT archived and start burning while I am doing something else. Does anybody know any hardcore study DVD or HD, life expectancy?


bun

Personally, I am all about sending data "out into the cloud", utilizing various online sources to store my "important" files. Has the nicety of being backed up, easily accessible, non-decaying, off-site, etc. There are quite a few that are fairly cheap, at least for the mid-term. On another plus, your not stuck in the situation a par to having a box full of old 5.25" discs with old data...

Excuse me if this is a dumb newbie question, but: does the NIT work with USB external burners for CD & DVD? Is software for this built-in, or can it be downloaded?

Thanks --

Actually, it CAN. Well, using KDE... Look up penguinbait's site, tablethacker.com

Not 100% sure if burning works (I think it does), but at least mounting CD's work.

I'm using an external hard drive ( an extra internal hard drive i have in an enclosure ) and then occasionally burning it to DVD for double protection, this is for my Pictures and Music mainly, but it works fine for me because its really cheap.