FW: [CS-FSLUG] Add-on to my previous message

[Stephen J. McCracken]

Ruth Marlene Friesen wrote:
>> back-up service.  Obviously, they rotate the tapes frequently.  But as
>> a home/SOHO user, I'd use CDs.  Just a personal preference on that.
>>
> Thanks, Don. Tapes would be an additional expense, and I have other 
> other priorities just now. But I can go with CDs - if I don't have to 
> burn a fresh one every time I do a back up.
> Is it possible to re-format and burn over a CD-R, or only on a CD-RW?

You can only "reformat" CD-RWs and not CD-Rs, but you don't have to 
close a disk (burn it in multi-session mode) and you can keep adding 
stuff to the CD until it's full.
> 
> Now, this 2nd computer comes with a Zip drive. I know next to nothing 
> about it, but one friend said hers had caused nothing but trouble for 
> her, so I'm not sure whether to bother.

If you've a CD burner, I wouldn't worry too much about a ZIP drive.  The 
most common ZIP drives only held about 100MB and then later they had a 
200MB drive.  With a CD you can burn 700MB on on CD.  CDs are better for 
backup as they don't go bad as easily (as long as they're cared for to 
not get scratched).  Another option instead of the ZIP drive if you're 
looking to move things between computers would be one of the USB pen 
drives.  I don't know the latest cost, but I would guess it would be 
much better than the ZIP drive.

sjm