[ccp4bb]: DVD burner summary

[Derek Logan <derek.logan@mbfys.lu.se>]

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Dear all,

Thanks to all who replied to my query about Firewire DVD burners! I 
think it would be reasonable to say that any drive based on the Pioneer 
104 technology is suitable (I almost got the impression it was the only 
technology as it sits under the hood of almost every brand-name burner). 
However one has to check that Toast is bundled with the drive if using 
OS X. The LaCie version works both on Mac and Linux. No-one (I think) 
reported use of the same drive under OS X and Windows, but in general 
the suggestion was to set up one machine as a server and mount the disks 
on the other machines using Samba or NFS.

I was interested by the alternatives suggested, especially the use of 
cheap IDE drives through a Firewire-IDE converter. If these 120 Gb 
drives really only cost $150 then this is pretty good "bang for your 
buck" and they would even take up less space than the equivalent number 
of DVDs (25). Does anyone have any comments on data lifetime on a hard 
drive which is in storage (i.e. unplugged on a shelf), relative to the 
lifetime on tape? The suggestion that RAR compression could get 2.5 Gb 
onto a single CD was also fascinating and I will definitely be looking 
into this.

Tassos P was worried about data lifetime on DVDs. Is this still a 
legitimate worry, or have things improved recently?

Thanks again
Derek
--
Derek Logan             tel: +46 46 222 1443
Molecular Biophysics    fax: +46 46 222 4692	
Lund University
Box 124, Lund, Sweden