I’m cleaning up old files that are on different flash drives and CDs and I
would like to combine them all in one place. Is it better to put them on a
CD/DVD or simply put them all on a larger flash drive?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #59, I look at issues around reorganizing old files and storing
them for the future.
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Cleaning old files
I’ll start by giving you my most common answer, “It depends.”
It depends on how long you want to keep them, what you’re going to be using
them for, and so forth. If you’re simply combining out of convenience, to be
honest either will probably do.
Drive quality matters
You’ll be able to get a flash drive that’s going to be much larger than any
CD or DVD that you can get these days. So I’d be tempted to go with a
good quality flash drive to make sure that everything’s not going to
fade away over time; since flash memory does wear out the more you write to
it.
Now, I don’t know how often you’re going to be writing to this thing. And of
course, I have to insist that regardless of what you put it on, you make sure
you back it up.
Keep backups
No matter what media you put it on (CDs, DVDs, flash drives or even external
hard drives), eventually something can go wrong. CD and DVD material does wear
out, flash drives wear out as I already mentioned, and even external hard
drives can at some point, fail.
Convenience matters
So, the most important thing is to find what’s the most convenient for you.
These days, I’d probably lean towards something connected via USB, so that it is
more portable to more different computers, since we’re finding more and more
computers that don’t even have CD and DVD drives.
Pick what’s appropriate. Pick what’s convenient for you.
Like I said, I’d be tempted to go with a USB drive just because they’re
small and convenient and easy to deal with. If you’ve got a lot of data, I’d
actually be tempted to go to an external hard drive. Those are going to be
physically a little bit bigger as well and that’s something that may not work
for you. I really don’t know.
But in all cases regardless of what you choose – back it up.
Maybe it’s appropriate to point out that a CD/DVD may have a life of less than 5 years (you did say use a good quality one). In five years time, your new computer may come without a CD/DVD reader – they don’t come with floppy drives any more, remember.
I should stay away from thumb drives, regardless of brand “quality”; they are only good for transfers of data from one device to another. SD cards (inserted into a USB card reader, and nothing but), that is another story, especially when the number of write cycles is not excessive. However, each will only take 2GB at most. The much more capacious SDHC cards have not yet been sufficiently tested over time.
External HDs seem to have a higher rate of failure due to knocks and bruises, so they could be considered risky for storage. DVDs would still come out best: their capacity is not that great (under 5GB), but what is wrong with putting your eggs in more baskets? If one breaks, you still have all the others. By consensus, there is Taiyo Yuden at the top of the heap, although some would prefer Kodak.
By sheer coincidence: http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-move-data-off-cds-and-dvds-in-the-most-convenient-way/
Mark the “bit rot” part: It somewhat drills a hole in my DVD thesis, albeit a small one.