Computer Hardware Stores Panama City FL

Posted by : Matt Lake

OK, I have a confession to make. I use a CD-R drive to back up my PCs. I played the backup field for years before settling on my current drive, and I know that there are better and more efficient ways to back up my data up than what I'm using. But I couldn't use any of the others to create workout disks for my Sony Discman, so inevitably I settled on the one that could give me Moby tracks to go.

My main data squeeze is HP's $249 CD-Writer 8230e. It's portable and uses a fairly speedy interface. It comes with backup software. And it's genuinely easy to set up, use, and share among PCs running Windows 98, Me, and 2000.

Oh, and of course it uses cheap, nonproprietary and readily available media: You can get spindles of CD-Rs and CD-RW disks at office supply stores for as little as 50 cents per disk.

At least, that's the way I describe it to justify it as a business expense. The deeper truth is that backing up data to recordable CDs is like using a disk drive to hammer nails. It works after a fashion, but it's not the right tool for the job. But it got a lot more suitable when I discovered some great software called 1Safe that does backups right--even to unsuitable media like CD-Rs. More about the software later … first, on to the drive of my dreams.

Love fest

I fell for the HP CD-Writer 8230e after testing it out on one of my notebook PCs. It is an external rewritable drive that writes to CD-R and CD-RW media at 4X speeds and ...

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