Back Up Devices
Many people have regretted not backing up their valuable information on their hard drive until it is too late. Tape backup drive is slow but reliable; and data is saved in a lineal fashion (you need to restore your material from start to finish) A 10 Gigabyte Ditto Pro drive will cost $270 -$400 additional recording tape will cost $50-$85; HP Sure Store 5 Gigabyte cost $285-420; a HP 8 Gigabyte $360-$480. HP backup tapes cost: 5 Gigabyte $45-$75, 7 Gigabyte $90-$105Zip drives come bundled with backup utilities and are faster than tapes. Many "Zip utilities" enable the directory structure and file name without unziping. Zip drives are limited in the size of their removable zip drive which can vary from 100 Megabytes to 10 Gigabytes (1000 Megabytes = 1Gigabyte). Unit price directly increases with its storage capacity. An "Iomega Zip" drive (the most popular) of 100 MB capacity retails from $150-$225, a 250 MB from $255-$360. The removable zip drive from $33 for 100 MB to $50 for 250 MB. A "Jaz Zip" drive, 2 Gigabytes, retails from $525 - $733. An additional removable disk $150-$240. The "Ditto Pro" 10 Gigabyte cartridge storage device sells for $418, an extra cartridge $88. The "ORB" uses 2.2 GB removable hard drives and retails from $150 to $300. Additional "Orb hard drives" are $45 each.
A third storage method is the read-write CD The HP RW CD retails from $200 to $525, Yamaha RW CD at $712 and Sony RW CD from $600-$675. All can record on RW CDs (each 650 MB) or R CDs (650 MB). The CD RW disks and /or CD R aer relatiely inexpensive.
The newest storage media is the Internet. Many sites will provide free storage space for "critical" files. This method, for me, has proven most unreliable. If you can get the site itself to accept your files (which in my experience has proven futile) you are limited by the speed of your Internet connection. The only thing in favour of "off site" storage is the "no cost" element.
Prices vary considerably among brand names, and devices. The most reliable back up device is tape as its storage device comes in a large array of capacities. Second choice would be Zip drives even though it may involve multiple "disks". Third choice, but a long way down from the zip drive is a "CD burner". "Free" storage on the Internet seems 1) notoriously unreliable and 2) long time involved in moving files to the storage area. Money may be saved by shopping on the Internet but be some devices will expect an SCSI card to be installed on your computer. If you don't have one the cost will be $100-$200 and you will have to install it.
The most economical method for back-up is the Ditto Tape system (initial cost $0.033 / Mb) and recordable tape ($0.0067/MB). The highest initial cost is the CD Burner ($0.773/MB) but it's RW disk is very economical ($0.01/MB). My advice: shop locally but recognise that price may vary from retailer to retailer.