My experience of CD-RW is also poor. At current prices, they're just not worth it. Though RW for DVD-sized media is a bit more tempting. I did use to use packet-writing on CD-R, but for reliable back-up I reckon it's still better to burn a whole disk at once. And hard drives are enough bigger than even DVD that it just doesn't seem worth the fiddle. Or you can do what I used to, the Zipdrives and CD-R, only using CD-R and writing a set to DVD. [looks at Runtime...] Floppy disks are pointless.