I have issue with both. They both seem overly buggy to me and I never got either to function properly on my computer. Easy CD/DVD 6 is totally lame at DVD movie creation. Don't even bother. As for data back up, there is no backup function per se. You have to manually select files/folders each time. But the biggest thing are all the bugs. For instance, I was never able to copy a DVD from my DVD ROM to my burner. Just hung my system and needed a hard reboot. Rather, the only way I could copy a disk was to my hard drive first and then to the burner. Took forever. Another thing that shows how lame Roxio attention to detail is, when I tried to create a label in their label maker module, the save/save as function simply didn't work. Others posted the same problem on the Roxis forum, but all Roxio does is delete posts that say "Easy CD/DVDsucks" instead of posting solutions to people's problems. You have to rely on other users for help.

As bad as Easy CD/DVD 6 is, Nero 6 is a piece of @#$! in my opinion. Everything starts in demo version (if you download it) and the earliest versions made it next to impossible to enter a serial #. I never got NeroVisionExpress 2 to work. It simply hangs my system. Then I was able to copy dvd's from my DVDROM directly to my burner (without having to create an image on my hard drive a la Roxio) until I tried a Ritek 4X DVD-R. These are "non-compliant" disks to Nero (all my other DVD software - including Roxio - burned these disks without problem.) I was willing to overlook all this because Nero 6 has an excellent BackItUp utility - or at least it had. In the most recent version, they've removed your ability to save a back up set. (Earlier versions of Nero 6 BackitUp did this fine.) Now the only way to use it is to run as a "job" - pain in the butt if you don't backup at a certain time. Worst of all however - and why Nero 6 gets the ultra lame award is their tech support. No free phone support - not even for installation problems. And their email replies take at least 3 days (and more usually a week) and then all you get is, "try reinstalling". Then you have to wait another week for a reply to your email telling them that was not a helpful response. Actually, there's only one tech support guy - his name is Darrick and he's really not helpful at all. Yes, I'm bitter.

I use Nero.
HOWEVER thus far if you want to use Nero I would highly recomend using Nero 5.x rather than the newest version (as of today that is 6.0.0.19). I have had various probelms with version 6.x thus far. At first many of the Nero loyal reacted to my "having problems" posts much the same way VV loyalists do - with shouts of "Burn him!!!" But now that time has moved forward many many others have found problems with Nero 6.x. Plenty of sites around that list problems and what they are if you look around. For me they don't involve what you are talking about, but I have not tried to do what you mention.

Hmm... thanks for the input. Maybe I'll just get a dedicated backup solution then. I tried Drive Image, Ghost, others, but back a couple years ago where they didn't directly write to DVD. Maybe time to take another look down that path.

BillyBoy I use Nero 5 to burn my DVD copies from my DVD-RW's with no problems. I also use Ghost to create my backup image and write it to a (now 2 DVD-RW 's and a CD-RW) with excellant results. I had to restore the last image last week after a major crash and the restore from the DVD;s was perfect.

Just bought the newest TDK 8X DVD+R burner and it came with a version of Roxio. So far I've been totally satisfied with it. Done three or four major backups with it (some just tests). The software has performed perfectly for me on my Celeron 633 Win XP system (my Athlon 2200 laptop't in for repairs).

I also have RecordNow ($40 download) and that has always worked flawlessly, but I haven't used it with my new burner since the Roxio software is easy to use and does exactly what I want.

I hear "Retrospect" is an excellent backup utility.