Better Storage Format: 25GB Blu-Ray Discs or HDDs?

[SolidSnake42]

Ok, pretty much I've had a faulty Blu-Ray burner twice in a row that is made by LG and got it on Newegg. Considering how much Blu-Ray burners actually cost, is it better to just burn off 25GB Blu-Ray discs (as in RMA the one I have AGAIN and try to use these Blu-Ray disks that I have) or should I get it refunded from Newegg and buy a 1TB or 2TB hard drive? I also ask this because I have about 2TB worth of data DVDs (personal, not business) over about 7 or so years. External/internal HDD or Blu-Ray discs?

 

[Blain]

Better Storage Format: 25GB Blu-Ray Discs or HDDs?

Considering how much Blu-Ray burners (and media) actually cost

HDDs

 

[SolidSnake42]

The sucky thing is, if I want proper storage for not only all of the DVDs I have burned over from the past 7+ years and also other things from my current computer, I'd probably say a 3TB is ideal. Sadly, the price hurts. And especially since I don't even have a mobo that supports USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb/s, it kinda sucks a bit more.

Or maybe 2 2TB externals would be more cost effective?

 

[Blain]

If you value your media files, you won't have any problem spending a few bucks to store them.

You don't need USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb's.
Buy a hot swap rack, slap in the HDs and copy over your files.
After loading the HDs up with your media, slip them into some 3.5" silicone drive protectors.

 

[Emulex]

hard drives require constant on or they die (lazy dirty bits). blu-ray's unless made out of exotic (gold?) will separate from rust after XX years.

use both!

 

[corkyg]

hard drives require constant on or they die (lazy dirty bits). blu-ray's unless made out of exotic (gold?) will separate from rust after XX years. use both!

Ditto! "Lazy bits?" Ha! Back in the old floppy days, we called that "bit rot."

I use both disks and external HDDs. Ihave 3 duplicated HDDs and many duplicate disks. I keep a set of disks showing imagery of all items in the house in a bank safety deposit box. Another emerging option is online storage

 

[fuzzymath10]

Definitely both if you can afford it. However use good media and store them properly. I have cheap CD-Rs that are approaching 10 years old and the outer portions are starting to deteriorate. I now use a lot of Maxell and Verbatim.

I find that older burners that were still expensive before they became mass-produced commodities work best and last longer. I've lost some cheap sub $50 burners but I have a $250 CD-RW from 2001 (LG), a $350 DVD-RW from 2003 (Pioneer), and a $200 BD-RE from 2007 (Sony) which I trust more, even if they're slower.

 

[hal2kilo]

hard drives require constant on or they die (lazy dirty bits).

Seriously, is that for real? I've been working with electronics since core memory. I've never seen that other then the drive not spinning up due to stiction.

 

[SolidSnake42]

So yeah, I just removed the Blu-Ray burner from my PC to be replaced and hopefully the next one will work fine because if it doesn't, I will more than likely go after something like a WD Elements 2TB on Amazon (cheaper there than Newegg) and start from there. The burner I have is an LG WH10LS30K Burner, which is supposed to be 10X burning, but guess what, it will only let me go to 8X for any time I told it to burn, which is also bullshit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-181-_-Product

I also have a 25 pack of the Optical Quantum Blu-Ray discs (25GB), one burned, but 2 got became coasters, and I don't mean a failed burn, but the drive screwed them up as the drive failed. So yeah, if I can't get these things to ever work properly for me, I might as well just not use these goddamn things and try something else.

 

[taltamir]

HDD don't just die any faster from lying in storage for some time, he is exaggerating. But they do lose data over time and can fail; and eventually they will die... certain metals oxidize, plastics break down, etc... So do SSDs (faster than spindle disks, ~10 years for SSD to lose data) and optical disks (~10 years for factory pressed disks, ~3 years for burned disks). If a drive loses the MBR data then it will appear empty, just as an optical disk can be rendered unreadable by losing the "right" data.

ANY method of storing information degrades, books, wall paintings, stone chiseling, optical media, magnetic media... anything. The phenomenon is a subset of entropy.

The solution is to keep multiple backups of data, parity recovery data, and verify your data and backups on a regular basis

 

[Tsavo]

HDD's. Fast, cheap and they don't become unreadable like a large # of my high quality burned DVDs.

 

[COPOHawk]

The answer for small business/home is:

1. Multiple copies of the data

2. I use hard drives and online-storage (where appropriate and the client approves).

Personally, I use a combination of hard drives for data...and I don't use RAID...except for my SBS 2008 server primary drive array...for the rest of the data...Syncback PRO. I have seen a number of corrupted/failed RAID arrays over the years (including issues with RAID 1) to have RAID be the best answer...

With the price of the Samsung 2 TB hard drives so low (I just got 5 for $79.99 each recently)...Blu-Rays dont seem like a great option anymore...

 

[SolidSnake42]

Well considering I didn't pay for the Blu-Ray burner, I got it for my birthday, we are going to try to RMA it one more time and see if it works. If it still fucks up in some way, I will try to get myself a 2TB external hard drive. See the thing is, I would love to copy/re-download some of the DVDs I have currently in my DVD binders. I actually do have about 4.5 DVD binders full of DVDs (as in 128 ones) plus a 64 DVD binder mostly full. So yeah, I'd say in all, I have well over 2TB worth of DVDs I would love to copy over. Maybe 2 2TB hard drives or a 3TB would probably help do the trick.

 

[Jumpem]

I have my data duplicated on four 1TB drives. I've thought about also burning some of it to DVD.

 

[taltamir]

multiple copies aren't enough. They have to be verified, and you can't TELL what is corrupt and what isn't without an OBSCENE amount of time and effort.

You must have parity that can quickly verify the data for you. If you are already including such parity, might as well include recovery data as well allowing fixing of said data.

You can use DVDisaster, ZFS, quickpar, or even winrar to get that.
I prefer ZFS RAIDZ2 (with regular scrubs) file storage with DVDisaster optical media backups. Those two require the least amount of work and provide the most complete solution.

 

[hal2kilo]

HDD don't just die any faster from lying in storage for some time, he is exaggerating. But they do lose data over time and can fail; and eventually they will die... certain metals oxidize, plastics break down, etc... So do SSDs (faster than spindle disks, ~10 years for SSD to lose data) and optical disks (~10 years for factory pressed disks, ~3 years for burned disks). If a drive loses the MBR data then it will appear empty, just as an optical disk can be rendered unreadable by losing the "right" data.

ANY method of storing information degrades, books, wall paintings, stone chiseling, optical media, magnetic media... anything. The phenomenon is a subset of entropy.

The solution is to keep multiple backups of data, parity recovery data, and verify your data and backups on a regular basis

I understand that. The Library of Congres is always dealing with those issues between obsolecense and media that going bad.

 

[SolidSnake42]

My problem is, I have so many old DVDs in one of my binders, and it will probably take:

1. A long time to see which ones have been corrupted.
2. Find the replacement data of what has been lost.
3. Time. Lots of time.

I mean, I have a lot of time on my hands, and this is something I'd love to do instead of having to sift through my DVD binders to find them, but my god it will be a pain in the ass lol.

 

[taltamir]

My problem is, I have so many old DVDs in one of my binders, and it will probably take:

1. A long time to see which ones have been corrupted.
2. Find the replacement data of what has been lost.
3. Time. Lots of time.

I mean, I have a lot of time on my hands, and this is something I'd love to do instead of having to sift through my DVD binders to find them, but my god it will be a pain in the ass lol.

http://dvdisaster.net/en/

It can't fix corrupted disks that it did not create. But it can scan them and tell you if there is corrupt data on them.

 

[SolidSnake42]

Usually I will find out of the data is corrupted by just trying to copy the files over onto a hard drive or a computer. I've ran into it before, or does it not always detect corrupted data in this way?

 

[Echo147]

So yeah, I just removed the Blu-Ray burner from my PC to be replaced and hopefully the next one will work fine because if it doesn't, I will more than likely go after something like a WD Elements 2TB on Amazon (cheaper there than Newegg) and start from there. The burner I have is an LG WH10LS30K Burner, which is supposed to be 10X burning, but guess what, it will only let me go to 8X for any time I told it to burn, which is also bullshit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-181-_-Product

I also have a 25 pack of the Optical Quantum Blu-Ray discs (25GB), one burned, but 2 got became coasters, and I don't mean a failed burn, but the drive screwed them up as the drive failed. So yeah, if I can't get these things to ever work properly for me, I might as well just not use these goddamn things and try something else.

Can't speak for other user experiences, but sticking to Pioneer burners and Verbatim BD-R/E/DL/DL-RE since mid 2008 I've had one coaster (RE) out of ~250.

Always liked this alternate method to HDDs, despite how time consuming and inconvenient it can be... Jumped ship from CD > DVD > BD each time and not yet been stung with "rotting" media.

 

[SolidSnake42]

So that burner is out for an RMA and I hope to fucking god that I get one that works properly.

 

[sxr7171]

Honestly there's nothing like 2 independent NAS units each running a different system if possible. For me 25GB is nothing and I'd have to burn 300+ such Blu-rays. Forgetting about cost the burden of recording those discs is beyond me.

 

[Echo147]

Honestly there's nothing like 2 independent NAS units each running a different system if possible. For me 25GB is nothing and I'd have to burn 300+ such Blu-rays. Forgetting about cost the burden of recording those discs is beyond me.

Yeah but they'd need to be on the same network to realistically keep in sync - thus almost certainly the same building.

So both are then equally vulnerable to freak accidents like power surges, fire, flood, or attack via internet.

I have a tertiary copy of critical personal data offsite (around 10 BD-DLs, encrypted naturally).

 

[taltamir]

Yeah but they'd need to be on the same network to realistically keep in sync - thus almost certainly the same building.

So both are then equally vulnerable to freak accidents like power surges, fire, flood, or attack via internet.

Not really, you just need fiber optic internet connection.
my verizon fios connection uploads at 25mbps... thats 270000MB a day. Plenty.

I have a tertiary copy of critical personal data offsite (around 10 BD-DLs, encrypted naturally).

Which means you regularly have to burn new ones and manually ship them off site. Something that doesn't need to happen

 

[SolidSnake42]

Some NAS solutions aren't cheap though, I can say that much. If I had the money, I'd probably do it.