I am. Both at work and in my home studio, my need to burn CDs
and DVDs (data, archive and audio/video) has faded almost entirely.
At work, it seems that even the largest (multi-gigabyte) file transfers
I need to do these days are uploaded either thru FTP or webpage file
transfer portals rather than thru optical discs slapped into Fedex
envelopes or handed off to messengers, and all backup or archiving
is done to hard drives, RAIDs or tape. At home where I also work on
projects, it's a similar story (except for the RAIDs and tape). If I need
to bring files back and forth between work and home, they go on either
a portable hard drive or a flash memory drive. I have spindles-full of
optical media going unused in both locations. Even photo shoots are
delivered on hard drives most of the time. My Toast is getting moldy....

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*We are just a quarantined people under an evil sun.*
--- Richard S. Shaver

I handle discs about 20% of what I did three years ago. Within a year or two, I'll likely work with discs even less, maybe 10% or 5%

"The Macbook Air will never succeed! You have to buy an add-on optical drive? Deal breaker! Deal breaker!"

Remind me. What are discs good for?

Same with me. I've got a big ( 500GB ) Neptune FireWire hard drive that I bring back and forth to work. Company backs up their data onto hard drive. Anything little, or unimportant, goes on a 2GB USB flash drive.

I really think that the internet, broadband more specifically, and these inexpensive flash drives really killed the CDR/RW, DVD optical disk media market. It's still popular, don't get me wrong. I just haven't used an optical disk in about a year.

I think I actually asked on here if there were any sales anybody knew of on 100 or 200 pack CDR disks, not too long ago. I never did buy any of them...

Jeff



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2008 04:35PM by kj4btkljv.

I still use disks for delivering files where the client wants hard copies. But lots of times I take thumb drives over to their offices and just copy the data, and let it be their problem.

I do use lots of DVD RW disks now when I download torrents and make DVDs via Toast. After we watch them, I erase and re-use.

Ftp for most jobs, Hard archive copies are put on DVD, can't wait for Blue-ray to fall in price.

hard drives (thank you, time machine for easy backups), dvds for archives only.

Jump drives are popular for moving files, too - sad, but true.

I had to find some CD-R media the other day - had not used the spindle in 6 months.

Laa,

It's not just you. The only time I use DVDs these days is when I'm backing up a movie. Otherwise, I store data on a spare hard disk drive or on flash drives. Currently, my primary backups are hard disk drives. But, when I need to transport my company's basic docs back and forth, I use an 8 gig compact flash card or an 8 gig USB Flash Drive. I prefer the compact flash card because two of the machines I backup from lack USB 2.0 and I use it in conjunction with a firewire card reader/writer. However, if the machines had USB 2.0, I'd be using the USB flash drive. The difference in speed for the task is negligible it's more convenient.

Robert

Quote
Robert M
I prefer the compact flash card because two of the machines I backup from lack USB 2.0...

Yeesh! How old are those computers?!

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.................................................................................................
*We are just a quarantined people under an evil sun.*
--- Richard S. Shaver

same here

bought 100+ printable DVDs a couple of years ago to keep for transferring, backup, whatever

still have about 100 left =)

even my biggest transfer, about 1 gig, is now done via FTP

not sure what i will do with these DVDs -- i would say copy movies -- but we only have about 10 DVDs in the whole house...

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

The decline in my use of CD-Rs was very sudden. I had been going through dozens each month and was buying huge numbers of them every time I found a sale. I've still got around 350 blanks sitting here in their cakeboxes. I've burnt perhaps twenty CDRs this year, mostly as backups for software that I've purchased, sometimes for GSX downloads from Apple and occasionally for a Linux install.

I burn lots and lots of DVDs, tho. I go through around 30 TYs every month.

I got tired of having to buy the same DVD for my kids again while they learn to handle them correctly.

So I rip and burn to CDR in divx format.

So yeah, I still use CDRs.

Also, my car CD player plays CDs in the mp3 format, so I have 11 or 12 albums on each CD. I have a 6 disc changer so I have about 70 albums at my fingertips. It's great since it displays the tag info on the radio display. An ipod wouldn't. It's not ideal for shuffle play, but it's great for listening to albums in the presented order.

Quote
Doc
I've burnt perhaps twenty CDRs this year, mostly as backups for software that I've purchased...

That is the one gaping hole in my home backup habits.

Quote
Doc
I burn lots and lots of DVDs, tho. I go through around 30 TYs every month.

Not sure what TYs stands for--I'm drawing a blank.

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*We are just a quarantined people under an evil sun.*
--- Richard S. Shaver

Quote
laarree
Not sure what TYs stands for--I'm drawing a blank.

Taiyo Yuden is my guess. It's a brand of DVD.

[www.taiyo-yuden.com]

Jeff

Quote
kj4btkljv

Quote
laarree
Not sure what TYs stands for--I'm drawing a blank.

Taiyo Yuden is my guess. It's a brand of DVD.

[www.taiyo-yuden.com]

Jeff

Jeff, you just might be right!

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.................................................................................................
*We are just a quarantined people under an evil sun.*
--- Richard S. Shaver

Laa,

One is an emac G4 1GHZ, another is a PowerMac G4/466 and the primary machine is a PowerMac G4 1.25 GHZ. I'm dropping USB 2.0 cards into each of the towers, just so I can use USB 2.0 dongles and media card reader/writers with them.

Robert

Robert, I forgot that Macs as recent as G4s had USB 1.0.

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.................................................................................................
*We are just a quarantined people under an evil sun.*
--- Richard S. Shaver

absolute last G4 FW800 OS X only towers were the first towers to have USB2 IIRC.

Not until the G5 towers, even the FW800 PowerMac was USB 1.1. The G4 Mac Mini and the later eMacs and G4 iMacs also had USB2 ports. USB2 also showed up eventually in the later iBooks and PowerBooks. The USB chips used in the later G4 towers were supposedly capable of being used as USB2 port controllers, Apple just did not enable that. As for the 1 GHz eMac, that is one model too early to get USB2 built in.

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I haven't burned a cd or dvd in about a year and a half. I have spindles upon spindles of them sitting in my bedroom/office unused. I think I might finally convert them to real coasters instead of just Toast ones.

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trisho.
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Official Card-Carrying Mother Earthin' Sl*t.