(current local Oz prices quoted) here's how storing data stacks up price-wise at the moment when buying retail: 1.44MB FLOPPY DISKS 10PK $4.60 $4,600.00 per Gb PANASONIC DVD-RAM 4.7GB $5.50 $1.17 per Gb bare hard drives: WESTERN DIGITAL 160GB 7200RPM $92.00 57c per Gb WESTERN DIGITAL 250GB 7200RPM $118.00 47c per Gb WESTERN DIGITAL 320GB 7200RPM $143.00 45c per Gb TDK GOLD 80 MIN (100 SPINDLE) $39.00 55c per Gb cd-R generic 100 $23.00 32c per Gb TDK DVD-R 16X 50PACK $39.00 16c per Gb DVD-R 4.7GB 100 pack generic $30.00 6c per Gb For passing data around to people, compatibility issues still exist and not everyone has a floppy drive or a DVD drive so CD's tend to be a pretty sure bet both on readability and price. DVD's clearly win on price if you know the recipient has such a drive though! It's also worth considering how long recipients need the data to last. cd/dvd media come from many different production lines in different factories and the reliable brand bought last week may be have *totally* different characteristics to the ones bought a week later. Even the dye used can change from batch to batch. one free utility for checking the media with Lite-On (and rebadged) burners/readers is kprobe from http://www.k-probe.com/ (2.1Mb download) which allows you to test cd/dvd/Blu-Ray media by looking at the error rates on the disks. there's also DVD identifier from http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/ which can identify who actually made the disks which can help save money if you were to find say that say a $4 TDK disk were actually the same as a 20c Chinese generic disk ;) Alternative data error checkers are available for other burners/readers here: http://www.k-probe.com/kprobe-k-probe-alternatives.php For long term archiving, the failure rate of hard drives being so low and compatibility being so high suggests these are the way to go. Price is comparable to other media too, and a cheap hard drive case or something as simple as a USB to IDE adapter such as the one described here: http://www.dansdata.com/rdriver.htm gets you going without having to bolt the drive into the computer. Given hard drives that are spun up infrequently are likely to last a *long* time, are easier to search and faster to move data to and from, the difference in price per Gb compared to other media is neither here nor there. They're also small, easier to store than a pile of DVD's / CD's though a bit more fragile if you're prone to dropping things. Prices change often though and it's always worth checking the cost per Gb of hard drives as mid ranged large capacity drives are often cheaper than the biggest or smallest capacity drives on the market. k
