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April 04, 2004

DVD Burning and Linux

I bought a new DVD burner today, and I must say that I'm quite happy with the performance of it thus far. After careful consideration, I decided on the Lite-On LDW-851S model, which to my complete surprise, Linux completely recognized with name and speeds without any special configuration what-so-ever. I opened K3b immediately after I installed the DVD burner, and sure enough it had "LITE-ON - DVDRW LDW-851S" listed. As my first test of the device, I decided that it was time to compile my collection of CD-R backups into one single disc. Here's the result:

The DVD burning in process.

DVD burning completed successfully.

Now, I've made backups of my files over the years, roughly making 3 full CD's per year with important documents, pictures, music, and things of that nature. What I was surprised to find when going through all of these CDs (and there were quite a few) was that I replicated alot of things in my backup procedures. I had alot of the same documents, downloads, and other misc files on different discs, just wasting space. Once I got it all into one folder and recategorized, I was able to get it all down to 1.6GB of data. It would've been a bit more, but I opted to keep a few things out, like old WMA files and some applications that I wanted to keep separate for future use.

I'm in the middle of debating if I want to make another copy of the DVD I made today as a backup to the backup. Since I have everything in one CD now, if something were to happen to that CD I'd be 100% screwed. I'm thinking that I might make one or two more copies and keep them in a separate place somewhere in case something was to happen to my CD holder (i.e. it got lost, etc). Only problem is that I feel like it's a bit wasteful at the moment using up too many DVD-R discs, as they're not too cheap ... almost $2.00 per disc. I remember when CD-R discs where that much, and I hated wasting them as well. Eventually the price bottomed out on those and I would have one of those big ass spindles that would last me a lifetime. Guess it's just a waiting game for the DVD-/+R discs as well.

Posted by ed at April 4, 2004 01:40 AM

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