"HeyBub" wrote in message

stuff snipped

Flash drives have lifetimes, too. Their lifetimes are based on usage, not
bit rot. Depending on the dye and the CD-drive, a CD can last decades or
more (or only a few weeks). A Flash Drive is good for at least a few
thousand read-write cycles.

Plus, you can get 16GB micro-mini-SDHC/DX cards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC

for $32 or less now and a form factor much smaller than a postage stamp and
thinner than a dime. $2 a GB for something that takes essentially no space
in a safety deposit box and is random access and direct-readable, to boot.

According to wikiP they are 11.0mm by 15.0mm by 1.0mm thick with a volume
of 165sq mm and a mass of 0.27 grams. The standard supports 2TB - we'll
see. Right now, 16GB is enough. First started seeing them in cellphones
and video pen recorders, now they're everywhere. Not sure if they're all
the same - the ones I get are labeled Transflash or TF. For a guy who used
to work with 5MB Bernoulli carts, the idea that I can fit 3 million
Bernoulli disk's (about 8 x 12 x 1") worth of data on something you could
hide between two quarters is pretty amazing. In a year or two I might even
deem them reliable, but it's too early to tell. So far, no bit errors when
copying.

The real problem with typical offsite backups is that you've got a bootable
image for a burned up machine. That sometimes turns into a royal panic
hunting for a machine to restore to when you've got to recover data quickly.
Data and programs are horribly intermingled in typical systems and then the
OS ties that all to the particular hardware it is running on. So a backup
Ghost type image made on one machine usually won't boot on machine with even
a modest configuration change. Things get even dicier when the client is
two or three versions behind the latest software version. Ebay has been a
godsend for many, allowing them to scarf up exactly the same machine they
used to have for a decent discount. Of course, that's all most policies
will give them for the dead machines, so it's still a hassle.

--
Bobby G.