Backup Solutions Justified

There is no doubt that by now you’ve realized the potential and necessity of storing your important files in a safe place—i.e. not on your hard drive, and sometimes even off-site. How do you go about implementing your backup plan?

Here’s a short comparative list of some (previously) popular methods:

Now, the cost per megabyte (MB) for each of these storage methods (at the time this article was written).

Method Cost of Blank Media Capacity (MB) Cost / MB (cents)
CD-R(W) $2.00 650 0.3
1.44MB Floppy disk $0.30 1.44 20.8
HP Colorado 5GB tape $44.77 4882.8 0.92
Hard drive $259.77 19531.25 1.33
LS-120 Floppy disk $12.99 120 10.8
Zip disk $9.99 100 9.99

All right, the prices are reflective of my cost today, and will change tomorrow, but the outcome is still the same. In fact, let me do something unfair: Cost of a CD-R when I first started using them was $15 each. That is 650MB of storage for $15. Cost per megabyte those days was 2.31 pennies. Now compare that with today’s options and you can see plainly it still fairs well.

There are other options. DAT tape storage looks to be around 0.13 cents per megabyte, which seems to be the cheapest solution yet… but think of initial cost of the DAT drive as well, folks!

Something to consider heavily is the universality of the media. How many people do you know own Zip drives? How many have a tape drive or removeable hard drive that is compatible with yours or your other friends? Now also ask yourself how many people you know that have a CD-ROM drive. Given the penetration of CD-ROM drives in the consumer computer market and the cost per megabyte for storage, a CD writer of some sort offers the best overall solution for backup storage.