CD and DVD Backup is the process of creating secondary copies of data on optical compact and digital versatile disc media for the purposes of restoring files or programs following a data loss event. This type of media is also used to create primary copies of data (
archive data) for long-term storage.
Recordable compact discs (CD-Rs) store an average of 700 MB of data including files, programs and media (images, video or audio)
and cost considerably less than recordable DVDs (DVD-Rs.) DVD-Rs store between 4.7GB for single-layer DVD-R media, and 8.54 for dual layer DVD-R media. Re-writeable CD and DVD (CD-R and DVD-R) media can be rewritten multiple times.
The biggest advantage of this method of backup is the availability and relatively low cost of optical media. The disadvantages of using CD and DVD media for data backup include:
- Optical discs are physically vulnerable to theft, damage and degradation
- CD and DVD backup generally involves manual administration processes which are labor-intensive
- CD and DVD media used for backup must be physically managed and organized in a disc library, adding additional manual administration
While many home office users still employ CD and DVD backup to protect data, the vast majority of professional organizations no longer rely on optical media and instead use disk-to-disk backup. Many businesses use remote backup to copy data to hard disk offsite via IP-WAN, getting the reliability of data copied to hard disk with the security of backup data residing offsite.
