Gold DVD's

[LesR]

Hi,
Has anyone had experience of these discs for backing up, and do you think they are worth the extra price for peice of mind.

Les

[Chris Cool]

I have to say that I don't trust any DVD's for long term storage - I always back up to portable hard drives. If and when the formats change, it will be much easier to copy from drive to drive.

I have one of the new 128GB flash drives on my laptop which is the way hard drives will go in the future

[LesR]

Hi Chris
I am over the top on my backups as I archive onto two HDD's then an external drive and finally onto discs, which I keep off site from my others. Hoping that if/when the DVD format changes I can recopy them to the latest device. I guess its a bit like file formats, some do and will fall by the wayside in time. I'm hoping any I have will change slowly.

Les

[hech54]

Those gold ones are a joke. The best DVD media that money can buy is still:
1) Taiyo Yuden 8x or 16x silver top(plain).
2) Verbatim
...in that order.

EDIT: And stay away from anything "printable" or Lightscribe.

[MickLL]

And stay away from anything "printable" or Lightscribe.

Please would you explain why (or give a link). I quite like making Lightscribe disks.

Thanks
MickLL

[hech54]

And stay away from anything "printable" or Lightscribe.

Please would you explain why (or give a link). I quite like making Lightscribe disks.

Thanks
MickLL

Well....you very rarely see quality store-bought Lightscribe discs. Usually you see crap like Memorsux, TDK and worse. That is not SO bad for CD media but when it comes to DVD media "all media are not created equal" surely applies.
Even if we are only talking CD media(which the OP is not)...you have the idiotic warning label that basically don't handle the Lightscribe discs or they will fade. Mildly annoying if true. That surely won't cause damage to anything but it seems a waste of money to me.

Then there are the warnings about overheating a Lightscribe disc. You can't leave them in a drive or machine for long periods or they will start to fade as well. Not damaging but again it seems a waste of money.

There is also the unexplained white powder residue now being reported by some Lightscribe users. This has gone basically un-addressed by Lightscribe other than it can be wiped off with a cloth. Is it flinging off into your computer drive? Who knows....DVD burners are cheap.
Is this stuff flinging off into your Bang & Olufsen Hi-Fi system? Different question that one....

[LesR]

Does this also include the Verbatim lightscribe DVDs?

Les

[hech54]

Does this also include the Verbatim lightscribe DVDs?

Les

That depends. For Verbatin Lightscribe discs....Verbatim "farms out" to two different factories/manufacturers. One is MUCH better than the other....but unfortunately you won't know which one you have until you get them home and open them up(and burn them with a program that displays the Media Code).

MCC - Mitsubishi Chemical Co. - GOOD
CMC - commonly referred to "Chinese Made Crap" - Not Good.

Here is an example of the good ones:
http://tiny.cc/MCC-Verbatim
*There is also a warning on that site that says that they cannot guarantee which media code you will get.

I buy straight Verbatim 16x all of the time for non-essential stuff like movie backups and I've always found the MCC made discs in the package. Odds are you will get the right ones. But for essential data backup I just buy Taiyo Yuden plain silver discs just to be sure.

[LesR]

Thats very interesting, and informative. I've never heard of a "media code" I use nero will I be able to see it in this program? I have not seen Taiyo Yuden discs before, I'll go and look them up now.

Les

[hech54]

The best burning program is ImgBurn (Image Burn). It shows you the media code.
Don't get me completely wrong. I've burned some serious CRAP media in my life (Princo) and they turned out fine. I copied them over to better media once I realized the error of my ways. I've lost some stuff to bad media but not all that much.
A good burner(I swear by LG drives) and a good burning program(ImgBurn or Prassi Ones) and you'll be OK for the most part.

I used to buy Taiyo Yuden discs at SVP Blank Disc Shop. They've changed names recently so I'm not certain they are still reliable.