DVD-RAM Backups: Part II

By Rich Eichacker
Vibrance Technology Corporation

Last quarter, I discussed replacing traditional tape backups with DVD-RAM. This quarter, I'll present two of the main drawbacks to DVD-RAM, talk about the drive I've been using, and give you a glimpse into the future of DVDs.

DVD-RAM has many advantages over tape media as a backup and data archiving tool, unfortunately, it is not the perfect solution. There are two main drawbacks that make tapes more attractive:

1. Tapes have a greater capacity, anywhere from 10GB-200GB (or more), compared to 9.4GB on the largest DVD-RAM.
2. Backup times for DVD-RAM far exceed tapes. Some tape backup drives can operate at 200 MB/min, about 100 times that of DVD-RAM.

If you are backing up a network with even a small number of machines, you'll find that the capacity and speed of a tape backup sys-tem will easily outweigh the advantages of DVD-RAM. For example, a 30GB tape can backup about 5 PCs or one server drive. With DVD-RAM, you would need two 9.4GB disks and would have to flip the disks over because the capacity of each side is 4.7GB.

Despite this, I can still recommend DVD-RAM in the following situations:

1. A small business environment (consulting, accounting, field sales office, etc.) with 1-3 computers.
2. Backing up or archiving selected, critical files (in any environment).

Panasonic SW-9571 DVD Burner

I purchased a Panasonic SW-9571 drive for about $250 last summer. It came with an external drive kit with USB and FireWire connections, making it very portable. For $175, you can purchase just the IDE drive which mounts internally (and there-fore is not portable). The SW-9571 can read and write DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW, and CD-R/RW. Panasonic recently replaced the SW-9571 with the SW-9572. Both internal and external configurations are still available.

The Future of DVD-RAM: Blue Laser

Today's CD and DVD technology uses red laser light to read and write information. The next generation of DVDs, coined HD-DVD, will use blue laser light, which can store more information because of its smaller wavelength.

Currently, there are two competing standards for HD-DVD: Blu-ray and Advanced Optical Disk (AOD). It appears that Blu-ray will become the standard mainly due to its in-creased capacity. A Blu-ray DVD can hold around 25GB per side (50GB double-sided or double-layered), making it ideal for both video and data storage.

But don't pull out your credit card just yet, Sony's Blu-ray drive is selling for about $4000. This technology will probably be affordable in the next 2-3 years.

Spring 2004 -Volume 14, Number 2

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