Rennie

Have read the posts about how zip/thumb drives do not last as long as cds. So I want to definitely back up my quilting designs to cds. But I wasn't sure you could keep adding to a cd once it is "burned"? If I have a folder called designs and they are broken down into, like, "coasters", "floral", etc. Can I go back and add designs to those categories once the cd is that so-called "burned"? Any help appreciated.

cathyvv

Keep in mind that even now some of the newer computers are made without cd drives -as did the 5" and 3.5 inch floppy drives. If you are worried about how long the thumb drives will last, these days you can save your patterns on the 'cloud'. Unless you design your own quilting designs, security 'in the cloud' is not an issue.

sewingsuz

Rennie, You can buy an external hard drive for about 80 dollars and that would be the way to go. My DH stores all his pictures and such on an external hard drive.

Prism99

To be really secure, you probably need two different forms of backup. I would probably do thumb drive backups and a cloud backup. Instead of thumb drives, you could invest in an external hard drive.

For thumb drives, I would probably keep multiple thumb drive backups (2 of each backup, then keep the backups 3 deep -- meaning, I wouldn't recycle the first two copies until I need a 4th copy). This way if one of the thumb drives fails, I still have a copy on another thumb drive. If both current thumb drive backups fail, I can go back to the next most recent backup. This would be my "on site" backup. Thumb drives are relatively inexpensive, but their smallness can make them easy to lose. An external hard drive is easier to keep track of, but are more expensive.

If you decide on CD backups, you need to get re-writable CDs (designated CD-RW instead of CD-R). Those allow you to re-use the CD. However, in that case you need to erase the CD each time you want to re-use it. This is more time-consuming than other forms of backup, and not necessarily more secure than thumb drives.

When you say thumb drives don't last as long as CDs, I assume you mean the data on them does not retain integrity as long? This is not an issue if you are doing regular backups, as there is not enough time for data to be lost. If you mean a thumb drive will fail sooner than a CD, I don't know if that's actually true but, if it is, I don't see how it really matters since thumb drives are relatively inexpensive to replace.

Jaiade

Prism, are you saying that the rw's can't be 'added' to as in adding without erasing?

cashs_mom

I use external hard drives to back up my computers. Just be aware that any form of data storage can fail so it's best to have more than one. I have 3 Passports external hard drives the I use to back up both my desktop and laptop. That way the odds of losing data are much reduced.

Prism99

Sorry, I was wrong. You can add to them until there is no more empty space, at which point you can erase them and start all over.

Aurora

I use flash drives and purchase extras during the back to school sales. I change current flash drives occasionally, so I always have a fresh current backup. I tried the external drive and had issues with it so I abandoned that idea.

sewnclog

They used to make recordable cd's. I can no longer find them, so once it's burned; you're done. You might try to burn more than one or two pattens to a cd so you don't have one cd for each quilt.

Rennie

Thanks for all the responses. I have the cloud available on my computer - but to be honest I do not understand "the cloud".