Is a dvd burner my best option for storage?

Question

I am a picture fiend :) I currently have all my digital pictures from 2004 until now on my poor almost 5 year old HP Pavilion a405n. (XP) I'm running at only 32.2% free space and I worry everyday that something is going to happen to all of our family photos. 

Soooooo..... I've been looking into storage options, I was thinking of getting an external hard drive but have been reading that they don't last long and are prone to failure, so I'm kinda leery of them. 

1.)Should I just purchase an external dvd burner? Are DVDs really more reliable than cd-r's & rw's? 

2.)Is data burned to a dvd able to be edited or at least taken back off of the dvd and back on your computer or is it stuck on the dvd only??

3.)What exactly can I put on a dvd? Only pictures? Or can you store music and other files on them as well?

4.)Both of my children are really getting into music and we have started buying music files on the web, can they be stored on DVDs? (probably not right? cuz how can you play a dvd on a cd player right? lol)

5.)What brand of Dvd burners are good? Are the Lite-On ones on Amazon any good? Are all recordable DVDs basically the same or does quality vary greatly?

okay someone help me please! I need to reclaim some space on this old gal, she needs to last me awhile longer :)

Or should I just scrap the dvd burner idea and get a hard drive....or burn everything to CDR's and hope for the best? I can't spend a fortune on this ;)

DoC · Accepted Answer

I'd highly recommend an external USB hard drive. You can get a 500GB drive these days for less than $100!! I've got several of them in different sizes and ages and I've not had one fail yet (touch wood!!). 

Regarding photos burnt to DVD/CD, once they've been written to that form of media, they are marked as "read only". In other words, you can open them back up on your computer, but you must use the "save as" command in order to save any changes you've made to any photos. I really recommend Photoshop Elements for editing, storing and sharing your photos. The latest version 7, is very easy to use and I consider it to be very user friendly, and an extremely "intuitive" program to learn. 

Don't dump your idea of a DVD burner either, you can still use one to make additional backups of your media files, but the real reason to keep it is to use Photoshop Elements to SHARE your files and easily create stunning photo slide shows (complete with music) and a host of other great creatives. Check some of the how-to videos at http://www.myphotoshopelements.com for lots of great ideas and simple tutorials. 

You can also use your DVD burner to backup all kinds of other files on your hard drive - documents, backup files, downloads, music files, videos, drivers, etc. As for what brand of DVD burner to buy, I like LG and Lite-On is good too. I'd recommend one with "Lightscribe" technology so you can burn labels on your DVD's/CD's by just flipping the DVD/CD over and using a built-in program to create really kool labels. Hope this helps.

Digy · Answer

External Hard Drives are your best bet get a WD hard drive they're very good. DVDs can store anything on them (even music) but will only play on computer and music and photos might work on some dvd players. Hard drives won't fail if they're kept at room temperature, kept away from magnets, and aren't shocked. External Hard drives are the exact same thing that's inside your computer except they're in a nice case. They better and faster storage options from DVDs because DVDs can also fail over time and have the same risks as a hard drive. I say go with the hard drive. you'll end up saving money and shouldn't have any problems. LG and Samsung burners are really good. If you're gonna get a external hard drive or dvd burner GET IT AT SAM'S CLUB!!!!!!!! They have a SIX MONTH RETURN POLICY open or not. I got my first external hard drive there and it still works great. I got my little brother an external LG burner for 70$ there. Also there are devices now by WD that you plug one end into your external usb hard drive and the other end into your tv to listen to music, watch photos, and movies. also I recommendd to put all photos onto both a hard drive and DVDs for double protection. and store the DVDs at one of your cousins or friend houses 'cause if your house were to burn down you'd end up spending like $2000 on data recovery. I highly recommend doing both. ALso have your kids get ipods they're much much better than cds. the cheapest ipods are like $50 bucks. Also all the mumbo jumbo about hard drives not lasting long is CRAP! My old 7-year old computer's hard drive is still working so don't worry about them not lasting long. Ok that is all. hope I was clear if you have any other ?s just ask!

Anonymous · Answer

Get a hard drive, Stick with a good brand Western Digital or Seagate. Both of these are the top rated hard drives on the market, & have been for many years... I have had my hard drives for over 5 years with no problems. You just need to always use the remove safely feature in Windows, so you do not corrupt any data & be careful not to drop the hard drive...

XxWin · Answer

Ide get an external hard drive- discs are unreliable in the long run, very messy, and are annoying, taking a long time to burn your data onto them.

For $155 CAD, you can get this 
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4330932&CatId=2422
which has 1000GB of storage, = over 200,000 photos

For $100, you can get this which can store 100,000 photos.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3094187&CatId=2422

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Is a dvd burner my best option for storage?

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