A question about multiple CD Burners

[Brian Levy <xernaut@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, again,

And please forgive me for cross-posting.  Once again, we've been 
re-considering our archiving strategies for our now nearly 200 CD archive 
of Caddo songs, oral history, and language.

I have a few specific questions about multiple CD burners, because given 
our small staff, it is getting truly overwhelming to produce the 4 copies 
per each CD that is required to have a multi-site archive to protect in 
some measure against damage, theft, etc.

I know there was a brief discussion of CD Duplicators some months ago, but 
I have a few additional questions concerning them:

1.  Do they make such multi-burners which only burn say 3 discs at 
once?  Or do they only do larger numbers at once?  (Someone recently told 
me of a burner which would do 8 discs at once.)

2.  Do any of you have any experience with any multi-CD burners, and could 
you recommend a. a good brand and model, and b. a specific kind of media 
that has been working well for you with that model (based on CD Analyzer 
test results and such).

3.  Is it a bad idea in general to use multi-CD burners to produce CDR's 
which need to be archival?  Do all such machines produce lesser quality 
CD-R's than good single burners such as the computer-based Plextors or the 
stand alone HHB's and Tascam's?

4.  Do you have any other advice on how to handle a growing archive for 
which one needs the ability to make multiple copies for a multi-site plan, 
especially given the likely need to replicate each 'master' CD every 5 
years, or whatever it turns out to be, based on CD Analysis of sample CD's 
every year of so to determine rate of decay and concomitant errors? (Of 
course, one will likely need to update equipment in a few years anyway, to 
switch to a DVD-R archiving strategy or something else, but in the 
meantime, while we are still using CD-R to house these precious audio 
recordings, we are presented with this need for a _lot_ of replication.)

I would appreciate any help any of you could offer.  Please feel free to 
respond off-list if you feel that would be more appropriate.

 Thank you again for your help.

                      Brian Levy

--------------------------------------------
Robert Brian Levy
Executive Director
Kiwat Hasinay Foundation
P.O. Box 305
Binger, OK 73009 USA
1-580-515-6011
kiwat@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.ahalenia.com/kiwat

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