difference between.....

I use ZipDisks for backing up my personal documents. Floppies are too small and slow for everything. I'd like to get my hands on a CD-RW disk though, if I can buy one at Staples or wherever without it coming in a stupid 10-pack...I only need one...though to be fair, I haven't even looked for CD-RWs locally, so I don't know.

--Fred

 

I use my zip disks to backup my photos on. I never have enough to burn to a cd and am a little leary of using CD RW so the zip works perfectly for that. Also, I have a few docs that I like to have backed up but that get changed from time to time so I store them on zips as well. Zips are faster than burning to cds as well.

It's nice having both a cd burner and zip disks, they complement each other well.

Basically the only difference is the size, although you need separate drives of course.

 

Pretty much the only difference between floppies and zips are the size - zips are very sturdy and trustworthy.

As for CD-RWs, ugh....I personally find them a painful technology. Great idea, but when they wear out after only like 3 or 4 rewrites, you're better off buying CD-R's and throwing them away.

 

Other folks have told me that. I got a few CD-RWs and have used them for rotating backups, but usually I use CD-Rs. I haven't erased any CD-RWs yet. How do you tell that it's worn out?

 

i wish the super-disk would have caught on. it was the same size as a floppy but held 100 meg (or was it 120?).

the super-disk drives are backwards-compatible w/ floppies, so that was another plus.

i bought one and i'm the only one i know who has one.

 

i currently have a PC with a floppy drive and a cdrw drive. i rarely use the floppy drive anymore (too slow, too small, too unreliable). i have only one CDRW disc (came with the burner) and i've rewritten to it several times now. otherwise, i just back up all my "important" files to a few CDRs.

 

I use cdrw for my mp3-discman. Every week I burn around 10 albums wich I will be listening in the train to work. Altough I will get a iPod soon.

 

Generally I back up on a few FireWire drives, an 80 and 20gb clearlights.
Or if I need to get them from another computer other than mine, I just put it on ftp.

 

Wow, your guys' CD-RWs wear out that easily? I've written to mine dozens of times with no problems... try getting non-generic brands maybe.

 

Zip Disks...

Zip Disks are fast, efficient, great for saving big files or backing up little files, but are a little pricey... it's cheaper to get a bunch of cd-r's, but I have a slow external cd burner, so I would rather use zips. I do a lot of design work and have both a pc and a mac (both with zip drives), and since I do not have them networked it's really easy to transfer data back and forth!

 

CDRWs rock for large backups (like your entire HDD).

USB "thumbdrives" are great if you just need a bit less storage but it has to be portable and will work on most computers.

 

Well I've had CD-RWs wear out after 12 or so writes. When it says there is something wrong with the disk I just do a complete erase (the one that takes about 40mins) and it works like new.

 

Re: Re: Zip Disks...

They didn't for me... as clients never used to return them...

One word... begins with 'B' and ends with 'S'