Are CD's Good For Backing-Up My Themeforest Files?

I wouldn’t recommend CDs are a realiable backup media. I had my first CD recorder in 1999, and always bought top brand empty CDs. Unfortunately, half of the oldest CDs with my studio recordings archive are lost now. Many CDs tend to lose data after about 5 years, and they were stored securely in their covers on a shelf, almost never used, so mechanical failure was not the reason. Recordable CDs are only good for listening to the music in car CD player, not for storing a valuable data.

I don’ trust any optical mediums at all. I’ve had a bunch of CDs, of different quality and burnt with different speed and most of those older than 5-6 years are either totally unreadable or my cd/dvd drive is having great trouble reading them.

For now I’ll stick to portable hard drive (I bought “tougher” version, just in case, although I don’t think it really matters that much, because I’m not carrying it anywhere, it just sits in my drawer ).

Although, I’m thinking about getting another one, just to have double-backup. Who knows… Is it healthy thinking or paranoia?

What’s a CD?

Yh DVD /CD’s are good for offline backup, not the best as there are online places but then it can be a fuss if your off line…

||+519665|AlexPascal said-|| What’s a CD?

haha, i was thinking the same thing… its crazy how tech has changed… anyone still remember a floppy disk? or a VHS hahahah its crazy.

External hard drives are currently best imo. Cloud storage is also good and convenient but depends on your usage. CDs/DVDs are not necessarily bad, but there are better options for just backup and I would avoid them.

Advantages of external hard drive are much larger sizes and that you can sync changes without having to re-burn. It’s much faster too. Plug, sync, done. It can also be scheduled automatically.

Advantages of cloud storage depend on the service, your usage, and needs. But having your files “anywhere” and automatic syncing can be a time saver. For a user like myself with a lot of data, it becomes less desirable for a total backup.

You can lose your data in any of the above ways. The best thing to do is to keep at least 2 copies, for example keep the files on your computer and make a backup. If either were to fail, you have a copy which is the whole point of a backup I think! If you are concerned about having both your backup and main files in the same physical location due to theft, fire, etc you may also consider safe guarding your backups or using cloud services more.

||+519662|urbazon said-|| Although, I’m thinking about getting another one, just to have double-backup. Who knows… Is it healthy thinking or paranoia?

I thought paranoia was healthy?

CD’s are both too small and too unstable to use. If you don’t have anything else then it’s definitely better than nothing.

Online storage is one of the safest things (if you don’t get hacked). There are a lot of free services out there and sometimes it’s cheap to upgrade your space.

Usually people don’t use Google to store their data but at least I do. They provide you with 7,5GB for free and for only $5 per year you get 20GB extra:

I use the 20GB plan since I’m at 5,6GB atm.

Here’s my setup:

1. 6TB NAS -server
2. External USB -harddrive
3. Online backup

I may be more paranoid than most but at any given time I’m juggling about 3-4 clients and would lose a lot of time if I had a crash.

Thanks to EVERYONE for your views, More answers are welcome!!!

Just Dropbox for me.

I have backup on CD, then I passed to DVD . I usually write 3 copies of a single disc and after a couple of years I check them, get rid of “not need it anymore crap” and burn a new triple copy.

What I observed. CD and DVD fail pretty quickly, I have DVDs from 2006 that don’t work anymore, never touch them, always keep them in a safe place but they don’t work nevertheless. Also there is a rule, more important the stuff is better chances that the storage will broke. On average TDK worked pretty good, and verbatim also. Sony discs failed miserable.

Also, the hard drives are a joke. Can’t count how many of those failed at some point.

In a certain period I was making a good deal of money by recuperating important data from failed disks. Don’t trust hard disks really. don’t. you will be sorry.

||+520105|doru said-|| I have backup on CD, then I passed to DVD . I usually write 3 copies of a single disc and after a couple of years I check them, get rid of “not need it anymore crap” and burn a new triple copy.

What I observed. CD and DVD fail pretty quickly, I have DVDs from 2006 that don’t work anymore, never touch them, always keep them in a safe place but they don’t work nevertheless. Also there is a rule, more important the stuff is better chances that the storage will broke. On average TDK worked pretty good, and verbatim also. Sony discs failed miserable.

Also, the hard drives are a joke. Can’t count how many of those failed at some point.

In a certain period I was making a good deal of money by recuperating important data from failed disks. Don’t trust hard disks really. don’t. you will be sorry.

Thank you very much for your answers, Keep it up – More answers are welcome!