Re: @everyone
Once again, optical discs are the best bet for Joe User. When/if he gets around to it, he'll have a valid copy that will be stable and reliable long enough for him to completely forget what was on it in the first place.
1) DVD's are one of the flimsiest, crappiest data mediums out there, especially in "joe user's" house with the sprogs and their wonderful treatment of such things.
2) Joe User likely has at least 500Mb worth of data to back up. Probably Joe User has at least a terrabyte HDD with a lot of movies/music, and maybe 40 of 50Gb worth of "junk files" on their system (Windows is great at cleaning up temp folders!). Junk files alone would just about take up a packet of DVD's.
Then there's the space requirements. I could get 2 2Tb USB HDD's in the same space as 10 DVD's. The 10 DVD's would not quite give enough backup space for the average home user's junk files, whereas the 2x2Tb HDD's would give enough for 3 full backups.
They won't fade. They're not as easy to damage as DVD's. Using the wrong marker type on them won't destroy them. A kid sliding one across a carpet won't damage them. Having the DVD tray close on the last one of them won't mean you just wiped out a 50-disk backup procedure coz disk#50 is now stuffed. They don't require a shitload of stuffing around every 30 minutes changing disk.
For backup, optical is a dead medium. I know a number of home users who would need in excess of 300 dvds each backup (think I am adding up the numbers right), whereas ONE external HDD will do it. For Joe User, it is the worst thing imaginable and perhaps only marginally better than nothing at all. It's like clothing yourself with a single layer of cling wrap before going for a walk in the snow.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
