PRACTICE TIP

Recently a business associate of mine recorded a TV tech spot called 'Death of the Floppy.' When my friend told me the title of his program we laughed, but we started to talk about how far we have come in the type of removable media storage products that are now available to consumers.

In the marketplace today you will find the following major categories for removable storage media:

• Diskettes
• Tape Drives
• Optical Media such as CD/DVD's

Since users can have a variety of PC configurations, not everyone can read from every media type. For example, everyone with a 3.5 inch floppy drive can read a floppy that was made on another PC's as there is a common format. However, tapes and optical media do not follow a universal standard. For example if you need to give your accountant a backup of your accounting database, be sure that he/she can read from the media that you supply.

How to choose what media to use

The first criteria for choosing your backup media is file size. If the size of your database is less than 1.44 MB, then use a floppy disk. If it is larger than 1.44 MB then it will not fit on a single floppy unless you opt to use a program such as Winzip, which will allow you to create a zip file that can span multiple floppy diskettes. However, this approach becomes too slow and unwieldy when you need in excess of 4 diskettes.

Tape drives are not really suitable for this example, because restoring a backup from tape typically requires having the same tape drive and backup software as the person who created the tape. Thus the primary function of tapes is to save and restore your own database, not to send the backup to others.

So how do you send your accountant a back up that exceeds 4 or 5 MB? This is greater than the typical allowed e-mail attachment size, so you can't e-mail the file and it is too cumbersome for floppy diskettes. The choice comes down to optical media, ie CD's. The first requirement to making a backup on a CD is to have a CD 'burner.' The burning refers to the laser inside the drive burning pits into the surface of the CDs to store the data (data files or music). If you just have a CD-ROM drive, but not a CD 'burner,' then you cannot write to a CD ' you must have a CD burner drive.

If you have a CD burner, then the next step is to choose the type of writeable CD. There are write once CDs (CD-R) and CDs that are rewriteable (CD-RW). Here are the pros and cons of each type:

CD TYPE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

CD-R Low cost, fast to format, Usually compatible with read only CD drives Write once and you are done. If you need to add anything to the CD you need to start over with a new one.  CD-RW Easy to modify contents of the CD Slow to format, may be problematic for some read only CD drives to read  

CD burners typically come with specialized software to format and 'close' the CD. You will need to configure the software to close the CD to 'read on any computer.'

In conclusion, if your database is greater than 5MB and less than 600 MB, then CDs are the way to go. But what if you have a file greater than 600 MB to back-up? You can move up to writeable DVDs, but the dust has not really settled in the DVD format wars. Things are still changing in the fight between the DVD-R/-RW and DV+R/+RW camps. If you can wait for a winner, that would save you from potentially choosing the 'Betamax' video tape format over the VHS format which later became the industry standard. We will cover the future of writeable DVDs in another column.

Suzanne D. Wisnik is the president of Wiz Business Systems, Inc. Suzanne is an accountant and former law firm administrator. Wiz Business Systems is based in Norristown, PA. Suzanne is a Certified Timeslips and Peachtree Consultant and is also an independent consultant for QuickBooks and Business Works Products. For further information Suzanne may reached at: 610-222-9629.

Recently a business associate of mine recorded a TV tech spot called 'Death of the Floppy.' When my friend told me the title of his program we laughed, but we started to talk about how far we have come in the type of removable media storage products that are now available to consumers.

In the marketplace today you will find the following major categories for removable storage media:

• Diskettes
• Tape Drives
• Optical Media such as CD/DVD's

Since users can have a variety of PC configurations, not everyone can read from every media type. For example, everyone with a 3.5 inch floppy drive can read a floppy that was made on another PC's as there is a common format. However, tapes and optical media do not follow a universal standard. For example if you need to give your accountant a backup of your accounting database, be sure that he/she can read from the media that you supply.

How to choose what media to use

The first criteria for choosing your backup media is file size. If the size of your database is less than 1.44 MB, then use a floppy disk. If it is larger than 1.44 MB then it will not fit on a single floppy unless you opt to use a program such as Winzip, which will allow you to create a zip file that can span multiple floppy diskettes. However, this approach becomes too slow and unwieldy when you need in excess of 4 diskettes.

Tape drives are not really suitable for this example, because restoring a backup from tape typically requires having the same tape drive and backup software as the person who created the tape. Thus the primary function of tapes is to save and restore your own database, not to send the backup to others.

So how do you send your accountant a back up that exceeds 4 or 5 MB? This is greater than the typical allowed e-mail attachment size, so you can't e-mail the file and it is too cumbersome for floppy diskettes. The choice comes down to optical media, ie CD's. The first requirement to making a backup on a CD is to have a CD 'burner.' The burning refers to the laser inside the drive burning pits into the surface of the CDs to store the data (data files or music). If you just have a CD-ROM drive, but not a CD 'burner,' then you cannot write to a CD ' you must have a CD burner drive.

If you have a CD burner, then the next step is to choose the type of writeable CD. There are write once CDs (CD-R) and CDs that are rewriteable (CD-RW). Here are the pros and cons of each type:

CD TYPE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

CD-R Low cost, fast to format, Usually compatible with read only CD drives Write once and you are done. If you need to add anything to the CD you need to start over with a new one.  CD-RW Easy to modify contents of the CD Slow to format, may be problematic for some read only CD drives to read  

CD burners typically come with specialized software to format and 'close' the CD. You will need to configure the software to close the CD to 'read on any computer.'

In conclusion, if your database is greater than 5MB and less than 600 MB, then CDs are the way to go. But what if you have a file greater than 600 MB to back-up? You can move up to writeable DVDs, but the dust has not really settled in the DVD format wars. Things are still changing in the fight between the DVD-R/-RW and DV+R/+RW camps. If you can wait for a winner, that would save you from potentially choosing the 'Betamax' video tape format over the VHS format which later became the industry standard. We will cover the future of writeable DVDs in another column.

Suzanne D. Wisnik is the president of Wiz Business Systems, Inc. Suzanne is an accountant and former law firm administrator. Wiz Business Systems is based in Norristown, PA. Suzanne is a Certified Timeslips and Peachtree Consultant and is also an independent consultant for QuickBooks and Business Works Products. For further information Suzanne may reached at: 610-222-9629.