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POLL: New hard drive vs DVD-RW's

L

Lonyo

Lifer
Hypothetical situation:
You need more storage space.
You have a DVD+-RW and a spare IDA channel (PATA/SATA - your choice).

Do you buy a load of DVD RW's (either format), or a new hard drive?

From the prices I have seen in the UK, you can get 3GB for £1 if you buy a 200GB HDD (seems to be the sweet spot for price)
If you buy DVD RW's, you get almost 6GB to the £1, or twice as much storage for your money. (assume the DVD's also come in seperate cases, and not in a cake box)

Obviously, hard drives are going to be easier and quicker to manage.
But DVD's are more flexible (can be used to transfer stuff to other computers with more ease)
Both are re-writeable, so that's not an issue. DVD's can also have films written/copied to them to watch on a TV.
DVD's can get scratched/damaged, but hard drives can fail too.


Which is the better option to buy, in YOUR opinion, and why?
(Asking this because I just bought 20 DVD+RW's for about 1/4th the price a 200GB HDD would cost)
 
You need about 50 DVD-Rs to store 200GB of data. If I had to back up 200GB of data, I'd rather pay a little more for one 200GB HDD (and if this was data that needed to be frequently accessed/updated, there would be no question). If you need to move the data between computers, just get an external enclosure for the drive. It's a LOT easier than juggling 20 or 30 or 50 DVDs. The price differential is not that high; a 200GB drive is only $100-120 (sometimes less with rebates), and you'd be lucky to find quality DVDs -- in cases -- for much under $2 apiece.

To me, the only thing DVDs would make sense for would be distribution of a reasonably small amount of data (say, <=50GB), or backup of a relatively small amount of data (small enough to fit on maybe half a dozen discs).
 
It would be a pain to backup to dvds all the time and hd's are cheap now and fast too. Dvd's also can get lost and scratched. It would be cheaper to use dvds if you don't count the cost of your burner.
 
I think I would choose hard drives, and really sensitve data (financial, pictures, home movies) to DVD's.

I have had CD's that I used for backup refuse to read when I needed to get the data from them.

I have heard that CD's and DVD's have this problem, with the Dye's wearing thin.

 
I'd go with a HD as well. Too bad you don't live in the states. Someone has a 160GB HD for like $50. after rebate this week.
.bh.
 
hard drive because its more accesible than tons of dvds and here in the states they are really cheap
 
it's very easy to misplace a couple of dvd-rw's but harder to lose a hd especialy in a nice usb external enclosure.
 
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