[Dreylivude]

I am in college and am in a digital animation program where our computer work is basicly our life. I was wondering if there was a way that I could use a DVD-RW as something like a second hard drive, so I could drag-and-drop copies of my files in for safe keeping, without having to go through the whole burning process every time, especially when it's just one or two little files. If this is not possible I would welcome other fairly inexpensive storage solutions. Thank you.

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I am in college and am in a digital animation program where our computer work is basicly our life. I was wondering if there was a way that I could use a DVD-RW as something like a second hard drive, so I could drag-and-drop copies of my files in for safe keeping, without having to go through the whole burning process every time, especially when it's just one or two little files. If this is not possible I would welcome other fairly inexpensive storage solutions. Thank you.

How large are the files? There are many solutions to this. You could get a little USB thumb drive. They make those up to 5 gigs now I think. That should be plenty of room. It's at least a DVD's worth of space. The natural burner in windows (the built in one) allows you to drag an drop and let your files sit and wait to be burned to CD. It makes an image of them and if you double click the drive they will be sitting in there. They aren't the real file, but an image waiting to burn. They stay there until you burn. Not sure if it works with DVD burners though....and I'm also not sure if they burn if you delete the original file either. It's not a storage idea really...but at least I got it half right.

[Nait Dawg]

I am in college and am in a digital animation program where our computer work is basicly our life. I was wondering if there was a way that I could use a DVD-RW as something like a second hard drive, so I could drag-and-drop copies of my files in for safe keeping, without having to go through the whole burning process every time, especially when it's just one or two little files. If this is not possible I would welcome other fairly inexpensive storage solutions. Thank you.

How large are the files? There are many solutions to this. You could get a little USB thumb drive. They make those up to 5 gigs now I think. That should be plenty of room. It's at least a DVD's worth of space. The natural burner in windows (the built in one) allows you to drag an drop and let your files sit and wait to be burned to CD. It makes an image of them and if you double click the drive they will be sitting in there. They aren't the real file, but an image waiting to burn. They stay there until you burn. Not sure if it works with DVD burners though....and I'm also not sure if they burn if you delete the original file either. It's not a storage idea really...but at least I got it half right.

[Dreylivude]

I do have a gig thumb drive that I use to take files back and forth to class with, however We are actually required to have as many backups as possible, cuz if we don't, we loose points. Especially if we say we have nothing to pass in if all our files are corrupted. So I'm just looking for fast and simple ways to make backups of files almost daily. Preferable on something that can't be deleted or corrupted so easily, like a disc.

[Nait Dawg]

In that case go and pick yourself up a USB backup hard drive. *shrugs* They come in huge sizes these days and even have software to go with it that will backup your system entirely. I like the old drag and drop method myself though. Works just the same.

[Dreylivude]

Yeah I was thinking of getting one of those, however, student budget, and although they aren't that expensive now, I still have to wait for a holiday to get it from my parents. Just wondering if there was something simple I could do. I heard that dvd-ram is something like a harddrive, where you can just drop files onto it. Is there anyway to get something like that from a dvd-rw?

[Nait Dawg]

I don't know the answer to that question. But I would venture to guess the answer is no. They have only the burning and reading functions. No storage function that I have ever heard of.

[Dreylivude]

In that case......drat.

[warriorscot]

I use dvd ram drives they operate just like a hard drive, except they are a little slow, i use them for back up for the same reason you want them(also they can be written to more times than a DVD-RW) if youre drive supports it its a good way to go, i dont think you can do the drag and drop with a DVD-RW you might though but i dont think so, you can do multisessions and things but windows doesnt have the support to burn itself onto dvdrws otherwise you could.

For better data security you should keep a seperate partition on the HD for backup data as if you lose the system partition everything should be safe in the other as long as the HD is functional.

It depends how big the files are, a second hard drive is always a safe bet, but i prefer DVDs as they are more resilient than an HD.

Doesnt your college have its own file server, i know my uni does we can connect using a system called resnet or via a VPN and store files on the uni file space handy for backups and they space you get only gets bigger as HDDs are cheaper than they ever were, also a good thing to try is sending vital data to friends in compressed and encrypted folders that way there is a copy on another computer, although thats a more desperate step and depends how much file space everyone has and how big the files are.

Edited by warriorscot, 02 February 2006 - 05:39 PM.

[Dreylivude]

Yeah thanks. Can normal dvd burners use dvd-rams or do you need a special one?

[comanighttrain]

it has to be dvd-ram compatible