On 30 Apr 2004 16:58:41 GMT, in rec.audio.opinion you wrote:


The first problem most people run into while doing backup, is dealing with
files that are larger than the media that you are using. You didn't identify
your operating system, but all varieties of Windows and DOS since DOS 3.0 or
so have included some kind of a program that will break large files up so
they can be spread over several pieces of media. The Backup program that
came with DOS 4 and every subsequent version of Windows has also included
some kind of file compression facility.


My operating system is Windows XP Home Edition. The computer is a Dell
Dimension 8200 with separate drives for floppy disc, CD, and DVD. The computer
did come preloaded with Roxio software for disc copying.

You know, I was just thinking that a 512 mb Compact Flash card might
work well for backups of large and varied files. Anyone think of a
reason that might make it not such a good idea?

One advantage of the cards is that you could actually choose different
sizes for different backup requirements and you could spread your
backups amongst several cards, thus creating a little more security.
For instance, you could use a 64 mb card solely for Paradox, and a 64
mb for WordPerfect. Then, if you have a crash on one card, you
wouldn't lose *all* your data. Plus, it would be easy to back up your
backups by having two sets of cards per backup (one could stay in the
safety deposit box and maybe you only update it every month or every 6
months). It would be pretty cheap and extremely portable as well as
being quite small, which would be an advantage for safety deposit box
storage. Also, obviously it's rewritable. And, as a last resort, there
are now a few self-administered programs that can recover corrupted
data on these cards, although they are usually used for recovering
photos, but I don't see why they wouldn't work on other types of data
(I could be wrong about this though).

I know that musicians are using CF cards to dump music onto them while
on the road.

Workable? It's certainly cheap, although clearly not quite as cheap as
an internal hard drive. I assume that a backup program would recognize
the drive just as handily as it would any other drive, but maybe I'm
mistaken...