"NY" wrote

| I used to back up to CD-RW, when all my emails, documents etc would fit
onto
| one 650 MB disc (those were the days!). But it was painfully slow. Once
| portable self-powered hard discs became available, I changed over to
backing
| up to them.
|

I use DVDs. It takes maybe 5 minutes, which I
don't need to supervise. I keep everything I need
backed up regularly on a single data partition and
copy that partition to DVD. I don't see why anyone
would need more than 4 GB for *routine* backup.
I do have big stuff backed up to old hard disks and
USB sticks, but for routine it's easier and more stable
to use DVDs.

With an external hard disk you then depend
on a single backup that could fail. A power surge
could kill it while it's connected. A mechanical
failure could happen. An external disk is for expansion
or mobility, not for backup. And it's really not very
good even for expansion. Millions of people have been
suckered into buying overpriced external disks that
they don't need. I have a friend who was talked into
it by his "IT person". He had about 400 GB free on
a 500 GB disk. Now he has 400 GB plus a 1 TB
external disk. A complete waste of money. The disk
is always plugged in. Thus it's just a poorly connected
internal drive in practice.

| I still use CD/DVD for:
|
| a) installing software that is supplied on CD rather than online
| b) playing video DVDs
| c) burning video DVDs of home movies etc for other people
|

I also use them for boot disks, to boot imaging
software, repair disks, memtest, hirens boot CD,
etc. (I still use CDs for most of those.) A USB stick
is not as widely supported and costs $5-20 per boot
stick. DVDs cost about 30 cents. Do you buy a
new USB stick every time you want a boot disk?
Or do you just not use boot disks?