DVD-RAM for backup

I got myself a “Super Multi DVD ReWriter”, namely the LG Electronics GSA-2166D, an external DVD burner using a USB 2.0 interface. I plugged it in and could use it immediately with GNU/Linux thanks to udev and the kernel modules scsi_mod, sr_mod (for SCSI CD-ROM drives) and usb_storage.

I want to use DVD-RAM as backup media, and it really works like a charm: I could create an ext2 filesystem on it by simply issuing the command

after which I could mount it and use it like a harddisk. The only drawback is when a large amount of data is written, the kernel is still busily writing data for up to 15(!) minutes after the copy process has finished in the user space!

Be careful when using such media with autofs. I experienced that when I simply began to copy data to /misc/dvdram without explicitly mounting the media before, autofs reaches its timeout during the transfer, which leads to a currupt filesystem. The manually executed e2fsck failed, all files went into lost+found!