Answer:
Look at the amount of space used on the hard drive and divide it by 530MB. This should be roughly the number of CD-RWs you need for an uncompressed backup. For example, if you want to back up 10GB, plan on about (10,000MB divided by 530MB) 19 discs. There’s no way around it. Given today’s huge 100GB, 200GB, and larger hard drives, it’s no surprise that you’d need many discs for a full backup. Note that some backup applications will assume that you’re backing up to CD-R even if you’re actually backing up to much more capacious DVD-R media; therefore, the count may be greatly exaggerated if you’re saving data to DVDs.
There are a few tricks that may help to reduce the number of discs. First, try CD-RW compression (or select the compression feature in your backup software). Compression can dramatically reduce some file sizes. DVD-RWs are another popular option. With 4.5GB available on a DVD (and dual-layer DVDs coming soon), that same 10GB backup would only take three DVDs. If you’re really in a crunch for discs, select fewer folders to back up (though you would no longer be creating a full backup). |