[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

However, for much of the music and video that I watch, I prefer to keep it on a hard drive for easy access. They both run smoother when being read off the hard drive vs. a CD or DVD. Also, I don't want to go through a case of CD's or DVD's just to find a video or program.
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My view is that for backing up files, burning them to disc is great. However, I'm not a fan of doing that to files that I might want to access multiple times.

I agree with that. Actually, I don't backup my own system to optical, I do it all on additional hard drives; I guess that makes my argument somewhat hypocritical. Still, from my experience a large percentage of computer users has little idea of what is going on with their computer, and does not have any need for large backup formats. It is annoying to backup the same file multiple times on non-rewritable media, especially if you edit that file often, but for the frequency with which most users backup their systems that becomes less of a problem.

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

The argument of a hard drive being more fragile than a CD or DVD... well I'm not so sure about that. A hard drive is pretty solid, I've never had a problem with one. But a CD/DVD is more portable, unless you have external drives like myself.

I would say that a hard-drive is certainly less fragile if you will not be moving the backup around, but I it's not a grab-and-go type of system for emergency backups like the article suggests. You certainly wouldn't want to throw a hard drive in a bag with other things you wish to save before running out into a flood.