Fair Backup

Clearly, the technology process doesn’t stand. It moves and we get new backup media from time to time, be it DVD, WebDAV or Flash USB drives.

What is left to the older backup media, such as CD? Can it be used still in our backups or not? Let’s investigate.

First of all, what is CD used for?
You can backup to CD the following:
- your work documents
- your mail archieve
- a small collection of audio or images
- some important data you work on and continue renewing (use CD-RW here)

Not to impressive is it?

Is there something more usable than a CD? Let’s see:
- a flash USB drive is smaller, more robust and may admit more (4Gb, for instance) data
- an external hard disk is larger, but is the fastest medium of all and can admit the largest amount of data as well (the best backup medium?)
- DVD offers just larger data storage (from 4.7 GB to 18.3 GB on double-sized, dual-layer DVDs)

So it seems like CD can’t be used for backups efficient, right?
Not so fast.

Here is when you can use your CD still:
- when you don’t have your flash USB stick with you and you need to carry data (you buy some cheap CDs and backup to them)
- when you need to store the most updated files somewhere: you use CD-RW then to backup some important work documents
- you want to store some medium amount of information for a while (too small for DVD)

Clearly, other backup media, such as DVD and USB drives outplay the CD, but you still can backup to CD from time to time.