I'm debating with myself whether I will save my music collection to a CD or a USB flash drive. The CD can have scratches on the surface, then my collection will be corrupted. Flash drives can easily get virus and my files can be lost in an instant. Which one will you recommend?
For backup purposes, you can use your flash drive as long as you don't use it with computers that you think might have some virus. We don't use CD's that much anymore and like you said, the data will become corrupted once the surface of the CD has been scratched.
gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, With terabyte drives so cheap now I use "spinners" to back up my material. They are a proven technology and if you put the backup someplace safe they should easily out last you. USB ones are slower...but they are easy to use. I don't much like jump drives for backup as I have had some fail after many uses. Recovery is difficult from such failures as it usually involves the file allocation tables. CDs and DVDs are better and scratches are not much of an issue for current hardware. In the early days just looking at one sideways would make it skip, now they really need to be badly damaged to cause problems. The issue that they would lose their data after a while..particularly ones you made yourself have been largely disproved. I have some that are from the 90s and they play just fine. I would never store the stuff on the "cloud". Too many issues with ownership, companies that go belly up, access and so on. A copy there is fine for folks that use portable players, but the originals ought to be somewhere safe.
I never thought that saving our own music in the cloud might create problems in the future. How about in YouTube? There are so many people uploading music there and it seems like some are not being blocked for copyright.
I have decided to save my music files into a DVD. Where should I store my DVD to keep it safe from being damaged? I have DVD movies that became brittle after I've displayed them on a shelf where the sun was shining.
JazzHog Messages: 33 Registered: July 2018 Location: Leeds, England
Baron
gofar99, what do you mean by "spinners" in this context?
As for ways of saving a large music collection: I would save by more than one means, since different modes of storage are subject to different problems. It's a bit like "belt and braces", as we say in Britain.
gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, spinners are hard drives with rotating internal platters. The non solid state type common in older (an many new) computers. I saw some this week at Frys Electronics in an add for 2 terabyte size for $59. You can put a lot of music on one that size. You may have to get an external adapter to attach it to your PC. They also are cheap. I picked up one that goes from a bare drive (the drive plugs into a small case) to a USB3 port in a PC for $30. USB2 ones are available but naturally slower.
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