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Question Anyone writing BR media here?

mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
I've decided to diversify my backup strategy a bit and my system is writing its/my very first dual-layer DVD (ooh, exciting) as it stores everything of consequence from my user folder / home directory without needing to spill over onto additional discs.

The writing process is not particularly fast; the discs I'm using claim 8x speed support and k3b in Linux is claiming to be doing 4x with a max theoretical drive speed of 10x; I've just checked the specs of the DVD writer and it claims to do 12x DVD DL writing, so I wonder why this is hanging about so much.. I created one giant encrypted file container so it should be able to make the most of both the hard drive (which can do 200MB/sec) and the writer. The next time I do a DVD DL I'll try in my BR writer drive rather than the DVD writer I typically use. I suppose I could also try using xfburn rather than k3b in Linux.

The reason why I ask about BR writing is that I'm considering getting a spindle of BR discs and the 50GB spindle has a warning on it that it's sensitive to fingerprints and scratches, which I read as "much more sensitive than any optical media I've ever used". Is anyone else here writing BR media and do you have any advice for a potential first-timer? I'll take it as read that I should be careful not to stick my greasy mitts on the data side or scratch it up 🙂 Though I'd be concerned if they're so sensitive that if you breathe on the data side wrong and it'll go belly-up.
 
The only optical media worth using for archival purposes is M-disc. I'll write a 25GB M-disc once every few years to backup critical data. Said critical data is already backed up in the cloud inside of an encrypted file container. I have one internal drive and two external drives capable of reading back the M-discs.
 
For archival purposes, you'll want to keep write speed as low as possible. Otherwise, you may run into read issue in a few years, because the writing layer hasn't been "burned" enough at high speeds. The laser simply has less time to affect the writing layer the faster you're burning. So especially the outer part of the disc may become unreadable rather quickly.

mikeymikec said:
The reason why I ask about BR writing is that I'm considering getting a spindle of BR discs and the 50GB spindle has a warning on it that it's sensitive to fingerprints and scratches, which I read as "much more sensitive than any optical media I've ever used". Is anyone else here writing BR media and do you have any advice for a potential first-timer? I'll take it as read that I should be careful not to stick my greasy mitts on the data side or scratch it up 🙂 Though I'd be concerned if they're so sensitive that if you breathe on the data side wrong and it'll go belly-up.
Click to expand...

Actually, blu-ray discs should be more resilient then DVDs, since they're phase change media, and have better protection of the reflective layer. Blu-ray discs should also be more scratch resistant, and have way better ECC.

As long as you take proper care when handling there really shouldn't be any problems.
 
I bought a BR burner and have yet to burn a disc. I mainly used it for 4k movies but have yet to do that either. Its always good to have. I also have about 20 spools of blank DVDs and rewritable CD that I bought over 10 years ago because "you never know". I scratched all that and went NAS and USB SSD external drives. Faster and probably last long enough.
 
Oyeve said:
I scratched all that
Click to expand...

Just curious, but how did that happen?

In 35-odd years, I've never scratched a disc unless by freak accident or by bad carrying case. If you put your index finger through the hole, and only touch the edge* with your thumb, like I was taught at the beginning of time, I simply does not happen. I still have pristine CDs from the 80s, that have been handled countless time since.

*you can grip edge-to-edge too, but not everyone has the 12cm finger reach for that.
 
Insert_Nickname said:
Just curious, but how did that happen?
Click to expand...
It's a figure of speech. He meant that he threw that idea out the window.

Story of how I came to know the meaning of "scratch that". I think I read a review of Dragon Naturally Speaking in PCMag. That got me really interested so I got that software and tried it out. During the tutorial, it told me that any time I wanted to delete whatever it had just written, I could say "scratch that". It was on a Pentium non-MMX PC and the speed was a bit slow and it didn't like my accent too much, so I gave up on it after half an hour. Never used it again.
 
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You may use the DVDisaster application to check the readability of the discs you burn at the various burning speeds. Then you can decide if the number of errors encountered for any given speed are acceptable to you.

The error rates also depend on the quality of the media. When I was researching the best way to burn reliable CDs/DVDs in my 20s, I found out that the best media is made by TDK and Sony.

Another way to increase the reliability of the backed up data is to store the data as RAR files and use the "Add recovery record" feature of WINRAR so if some sector is unreadable, WINRAR may still be able to reconstruct the missing data with the help of the recovery record.
 
igor_kavinski said:
It's a figure of speech. He meant that he threw that idea out the window.
Click to expand...

Complete reading comprehension fail. Mornings... 🙄

mikeymikec said:
How low are you suggesting? I did a quick calculation and based on the 4x burn speed I experienced above (IIRC about 5MB/sec), it would take nearly three hours to write a 50GB disc.
Click to expand...

I usually don't go above 2x, since my drive doesn't do CLV on higher speeds. CLV = Constant Linear Velocity, as opposed to CAV/Constant Angular Velocity. Some drives do zoned CLV or CAV at various speeds.

CLV is always "best" as it ensures to laser has equal timing across the entire disc. It starts by spinning the disc at high speed then lowers speed the further out on the disc you get. As a traditional CD player. CAV is the complete opposite, you spin the disc as fast as it'll go constantly, so the further out you get, the faster it'll read/write.

1x blu-ray = 4.5MB/s. So at 1x it indeed takes 180 minutes to write a dual layer blu-ray. At 2x it's thus 90 minutes, and so forth. Luckily, it's not the bad old days, where if you looked wrong at the PC when burning, you'd get a frisbee.
 
mikeymikec said:
@Insert_Nickname Out of curiosity, have you experienced issues with writing BRs too fast?
Click to expand...

Not yet with blu-rays, no. CD and DVDs on the other hand, plenty of times. Time on various read/write errors varies from as little as a month, to a couple of years. Luckily, you can usually (but not always) salvage them with an iso writer set to do a few tries. With DVDs it's usually easier to just write a couple of spares. They were/are cheap enough it was no big deal.

I suspect phase change media is far more resilient then discs with an organic writing layer. I do have some DVD-RAMs (no, not a typo) from '98-'99'ish that are perfectly readable. So they're going on 25 years already. Unlike regular CD-R/RWs (and later DVDs) they're also phase change media.
 
Jumping in here for some advice/help.

Burned some files on BR discs with K3b several yrs ago. All were working. Now some are good & some show as blank discs. Any possible explanation?
 
maddie said:
Burned some files on BR discs with K3b several yrs ago.
Click to expand...
Which brand of media and what was the recording speed?

Were the discs stored some place where the temps could have gotten too high during summer? Do the blank showing discs differ in any way visually (the recording layer) from the working ones?
 
I have some old files and backup game installers on Verbatim lightscribe DL DVD+Rs from 10-20 years ago. They work but can be picky about the drive. They don't work in a USB optical drive I got on ebay but do work in an old internal LG drive I have kept around.
 
igor_kavinski said:
Which brand of media and what was the recording speed?

Were the discs stored some place where the temps could have gotten too high during summer? Do the blank showing discs differ in any way visually (the recording layer) from the working ones?
Click to expand...
Plexdisc.
Tropical island. Does not get as hot as you might think. Sea moderates temps. All stored together'
Forgot the speed but fairly sure I chose middle of the range, not fastest
No visual differences between those that work and the bad ones.
Bad ones read as a blank disc when mounted.
 
CP5670 said:
I have some old files and backup game installers on Verbatim lightscribe DL DVD+Rs from 10-20 years ago. They work but can be picky about the drive. They don't work in a USB optical drive I got on ebay but do work in an old internal LG drive I have kept around.
Click to expand...

Internal drives usually have a more powerful laser then USB ones. It can help with read errors, and general writing quality.

Some drives just dislike certain media. It happens. Always try a couple of different drives if you encounter read errors. It's worth a shot, sometimes another drive reads a disc perfectly where another failed.
 
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