This is how I carry out my DVD-R Backups and its a bit of an overkill but I have a good reason and will explain later.

1. I Use WinRar to compress the data into Multiple Chunks of 15MB or 50MB files, it depends on the Data.  Using "Solid Archive" at this point will also give you more compression.

2. I than Select my Rar Compressed files than use QuickPar  to generate Parity files, these is a method of redundancy like RAID Systems on a server.  I usualy leave the default settings but if I notice that the recovery files are a bit on the low side I will manually bump it up.

3. Finaly I select my Rared Files and Parity Files and a tool called QuickSFV to generate file verification file.

4. Now since there will always be  a small bit of room left on each DVD, I create a folder called Tools and I include Winrar, QuickPar, QuickSFV and if there is enough diskspace even DVD Burning program.

5. Finaly I burn the entire thing onto a DVD-R.  Now if I have time, during the burning process I select the "Verify" option after the burn so that the Burned Data is compared to the data on the hard drive.

Ok here is an explanation of this excercise.

Why WinRar?? Why not? But Seriously, You can fit more data on a DVD-R by Compressing the data rather than simply burning it.  Depending on the data you can get savings of 30%-70% or more space.

 Whats with with QuickPar Parity and QuickSFV File Verification?? and Verifying after a burn?  Well I dont have time to Verify each DVD-R that I Burn, and although the DVD-R Burning software may report that the Burn was ok... I have run into discs that were actually bad!!.

So a quick method is to use QuickSFV.  After you burn you're disc, you can run the QuickSFV Verifiation and it will check and report back if youre data is good.

Than why do I need QuickPar parity files?? Well lets say you made a backup and delete you're files off you're hard drive and sometime in the future, you needed these files back... What if the DVD got scratched? or worse the original burn had flaws?  Well you can Recover the data from the DVD-R using the Parity files.

I speak from experience, this happend to me.  What I thought was a perfectly good burned DVD was infact faulty.  But thanks to QuickPar I was able to restore my data.

As I've mentioned before.  I hate Digital Data!! of any kind.

Manufacturers are quick to sell 500GIG and now 1 TerraByte Drives, but no good backup solution.

Another Method of backup is to simply buy an external drive and backup you're data there.  and keep the external drive in a safe place.

Keep this in mind with Hard drives... its not a question of if it will fail... but rather when it will fail.  ALL Hard Drives eventually fail, they are mechanical in nature.

Large capacity Flash Drives is whats coming in the future, we can already see this in New Laptops without hard drives.  But than again Flash Drives have a LifeSpan too, after 100,000+ Read/Writes they fail as well.