Can I back up computer files onto a digital video tape using a camcorder?
Yes. Using the camcorder as a data tape drive will put more wear and tear on the camcorder, but you can use digital video camcorders as backup devices for Windows, Mac and Linux computer systems. Shareware and open source software is available that will let you store 10GB to 15GB of computer files on a one-hour digital video tape. Things to watch out for include whether you will need to read the data back off the tape using a different camera than the one used to record it. Digital video tape and camcorders are not designed to be computer backup devices, so there are no guarantees. A number of shareware packages for Windows, including Firestreamer and DVStreamer, enable backups to be written to digital video tape. Macintosh OS X computers can use DV Backup to store data to digital video, Digital8 and DVCAM tape devices. Linux systems can use the open source program dvbackup, which is reported to compile using GNU Compiler Collection on Windows and Mac OS X systems as well, although device driver issues need to be addressed to successfully use the program on Windows systems. Digital video tape backup could be a useful personal backup tool.
