Looking for a Data Storage Solution

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm looking for a data storage solution for my home videos.

Currently I have all my home videos in mini dv tape format. Each tape has a 60 minute length home movie, so if I transfer it to PC, I'll have about 14Gb data. Today I have a total of 25 tapes, and as we all know, tapes won't last forever.

As a rule, I don't use a tape more than once. Given the price of each tape and the loss of quality when re-recording over a previous movie, I prefer to have the advantage of saving the original media for future access when needed.

Now, I would like to transfer all videos for digital media, so I can access, copy and edit those videos to make my home DVDs. Instead of accessing the original mini DV tapes (and the time of transfering them), I prefer to access once and save the video for future access.

Now each movie will have about 15Gb data, and a DVD (even a DL), will have maximum 9Gb length. that is not enough, so I could think of a hard drive. Buying a 500Gb hard drive would do the job, but it would be filled at about 30 movies, and I already have 25. Also, hard disk is prone to fail, so I would loose all movies.

My question is, since the blue ray DVD are yet to come, which alternative do I have to store that amount of data, in a safe way? I would prefer to avoid some tape solution, which I believe it's not reliable on the long run. I wouldn't mind saving a movie on a single DVD, but current DVD capacity doesn't allow me to do that ... so any media capable of doing this for me?

Thanks

 

[Lord Evermore]

I'm not sure exactly what format the mini-DV really is, whether there is any compression of the data. I'm not into home video stuff at all. If you were to transfer the data from the tape, how would you be doing it, and in what format would it be stored?

Normally people archive their home videos by using a compressed format such as MPEG2 or MPEG4 or Divx. I'd expect your videos could be compressed at a very good quality and get down to 3 to 4GB (this is what an hour long program on standard TV is for me, at high bitrate MPEG2 recording) and even further if you used MPEG4 or Divx. A Divx conversion of one of my hour-long TV recordings, still with a high bitrate with high quality, is just a few hundred megabytes.

Even real DVDs do use MPEG2 compression, so keep that in mind if you're wondering about image quality. An uncompressed DVD movie would be enormous.

I think you might be best off using DVDs, but compressing them with MPEG4/Divx or just MPEG2, depending on whether you'd like the discs to be universally playable on regular DVD players, or if you just want them to be PC-readable files.

Depending on the format, you could also consider taking the bare DV format file, and splitting it into 30 minute lengths, if that wouldn't be inconvenient to work with.

 

[wpshooter]

B4u:

Can I give you a bit of advice.

You are going to find that as life goes by, your interest are going to change a great deal over your life time.

In a few years, the likelyhood is that you will no longer be interested in this. Therefore, don't spend a great deal of time and money on this, because in a few years all of this will be foder for a yard sale !!! I hope you take this in the spirit that I intend, it is not a knock on your interest in this at all.

Have a great day.

 

[racolvin]

Take a look at NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. You won't be able to do your editing, etc from them because the network link is too slow, even at 1Gbps, but for cheap storage, they're great. I've used ones from Buffalo (http://www.buffalotech.com) and you can get ~2TBytes of storage for under $2k

 

[Lord Evermore]

Only 1600 dollars for a LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme USB/Firewire enclosure. Or two 1TB enclosures for under 1400. Under 1000 for four 500GB units. Having them all accessible at all times is unlikely to be a requirement. 2.25TB with 3 internal drives for 1200. Under 900 for 4 500GB internals. A NAS is kinda pointless for his needs, and overly expensive and underperforming.

 

[racolvin]

OP-> Evermore makes a very good point about USB/Fireware attached options. I have 5 computers in the house that are networked and I liked the NAS w/RAID option better than sharing a USB/Firewire attached device. Personal preference on my part so your mileage may vary.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I didn't see any specifications that b4u needed any sort of network access to the data. For a single PC needing access, a Firewire or USB connection is ideal.

If multiple systems need to get at the files, and an external device is decided on, then a NAS does have benefits, of course. You don't have to have a particular computer turned on or connected to the network, no problems with Windows file sharing. However a portable drive could simply be moved to whatever computer needs the files, if you didn't want to do file sharing. Depending on the cost difference, and how annoying you found it to move the drive around, a NAS could be a better option. Depending on implementation, it might even be faster for data transfer.

 

[b4u]

Thanks for the answers so far

As a preference, I want to transfer the video to PC without any compression at all. I currently use Adobe Premiere 2.0 to capture from my handycam, then the movie gets to an uncompressed avi format.

I want uncompressed, because I want to be absolutelly (sp?) sure that I have no loss of quality. Latter on, for example in a year or two, if I want to make a small home video from some tapes, I don't have to touch them anymore, and they will be stored in the best condition I can provide. I just have to insert the media on the PC of the video, and extract from the specified avi file the part I want ... in about 20 years, I will thank myself storing the tapes in a safe manner and having access to data on the PC. It's my home videos, my family, my daughter growing up, and that is priceless!

Now as a storing solution, I would prefer the cheapest possible. Today I've gathered some info about blue-ray, and seems that a single side blue-disk will provide 25Gb, and about 50Gb for double layer. That would be exactly what I was looking for, but for example Plextor is lauching a drive, which will have a high price (probably), and I don't even know how much would BD (single/double layer) media will cost ... maybe wait for another year or so ... that just seems a long time though

Maybe I'll end up buying a 500Gb disc, than in a year invest in blue-ray or some other available format (the one from sony?), then transfer the data for their media ... that would give me the best of both worlds ... provided that the disc doesn't fail me over the year.

Anyone has any info about blue-ray tech? Prices, wide availability or previsions, ... ?


Again thanks for the answers and help