Question With HDDs also being affected by the latest scourge will Blu-rays make a comeback?

[right_to_know]

There must be lots of ordinary people that need higher amounts of storage whether it's for video and other raw data or gamers saving their offline backups.

Blu-rays would be a stop gap but I had heard they weren't being made anymore.
Is this true or was it just the commercial players and movies while leaving data Blu-rays to continue.
What are realistic longer term storage options for ordinary people?

 

[Steltek]

Honestly, there really aren't any. Even if hard drives are expensive, they still represent your best choice for local storage alongside cold web storage.

Blu-ray media is still being made by Verbatim and Ritek, but it has never been a suitable long-term storage option due to both cost and the fact that it is subject to disc rot. Even a lot of the so called "1,000 year" M-disc media sold today aren't actually true M-disc media since Millenniata went bankrupt (tests have shown that Verbatim changed the formula and is just selling high-grade standard Blu-ray discs as M-discs). And, on top of that, Blu-ray/M-disc drives are becoming more scarce and expensive.

 

[dlerious]

Last I checked, Hard drives were costing about $100 per 4TB and bluray was around $1 per GB ($1.50 for dual layer). That would be about $1000 for a TB of bluray.

 

[Steltek]

Last I checked, Hard drives were costing about $100 per 4TB and bluray was around $1 per GB ($1.50 for dual layer). That would be about $1000 for a TB of bluray.

Exactly.

The experimental media made from glass and/or quartz crystal being looked at now that could potentially outstrip HDDs requires femtosecond lasers to write 3D data into glass/quartz based media to increase optical storage density. Those lasers cost from $10k to $300k EACH, and the smallest ones are not exactly small. The current smallest one in existence takes up about 96,040 cubic millimeters in space.

In short, absent a technological laser breakthrough, expanded density optical media is not coming any time soon or in any affordable package.

 

[mikeymikec]

And, on top of that, Blu-ray/M-disc drives are becoming more scarce and expensive.

After buying my 'backup BR drive' (5.25") a few months ago, my supplier got rid of that category from their website altogether and now only sells portable USB type optical drives.

 

[dlerious]

After buying my 'backup BR drive' (5.25") a few months ago, my supplier got rid of that category from their website altogether and now only sells portable USB type optical drives.

The last 2 I bought were Pioneer XD008 drives. $365 for UHD (4K). Most of what I see now are 3rd party sellers. I'm thinking about grabbing a couple DVD drives for my regular DVDs so my blurays last longer.

 

[mindless1]

I just rip optical discs to files on HDDs and already finished doing that years ago for anything worthy of it.

 

[aigomorla]

no, i buy refurbished enterprise class SAS drives that goes off service for cheap, and use them for storage for media and other stuff. My super important DATA i'll keep on a cloud, while the other stuff, i will have multiple redundancy's setup so even using refurbished enterprise gear will not risk of a data loss, unless i lose the entire pc to something.

But my main NAS i call the Red Queen, has over 142TB of storage capacity all on enterprise class SAS drives. I would need at least 5 Disk failures for me to worry about data loss. Typically the worst i have encountered is 2 drive loss. Most of the time i get a email telling me when a drive fails SMART, and i have spares in storage to immediately replace the one that needs replacing. Even then with Amazon Prime and Ebay, i could probably get a replacement within a few days, or long enough for me to lose 5 disks for my data to get compromised.

Oh and i will only use SAS drives over SATA. I know they are sometimes identical, but I have lost way less SAS Drives then SATA ones. Hence why i am a avid fanboy of SAS drives, and have the gear to support SAS drives.

Redundancy is important when it comes to data. Always assume nothing is ever fail proof, hence why the real important stuff, i have in multiple locations, and at different sites entirely too.

After buying my 'backup BR drive' (5.25") a few months ago, my supplier got rid of that category from their website altogether and now only sells portable USB type optical drives.

I much prefer the 5.25 over the cheap slot ones.
I have an ASUS one with DL, USB in a external 5.25 bay, and i have a plextor one that's in a machine. Finding a case with a 5.25 slot is very difficult even now.
But i only use them when i need to, and i seem to be burning more DVD-R (surveillance camera footage) when people do not understand how to use google docs to download it.

 

[dlerious]

But my main NAS i call the Red Queen, has over 142TB of storage capacity all on enterprise class SAS drives. I would need at least 5 Disk failures for me to worry about data loss. Typically the worst i have encountered is 2 drive loss. Most of the time i get a email telling me when a drive fails SMART, and i have spares in storage to immediately replace the one that needs replacing. Even then with Amazon Prime and Ebay, i could probably get a replacement within a few days, or long enough for me to lose 5 disks for my data to get compromised.

Out of curiosity, do you remember what your rebuild time was?

 

[right_to_know]

Blu-ray media is still being made by Verbatim and Ritek, but it has never been a suitable long-term storage option due to both cost and the fact that it is subject to disc rot.

Isn't the problem with hard drives apart from being machines which can break that over the long term they can demagnatise and lose information?

Redundancy is important when it comes to data. Always assume nothing is ever fail proof, hence why the real important stuff, i have in multiple locations, and at different sites entirely too.

That gets into the problem of what to keep and then having some kind of system on how and where to save without it becoming confusing.

 

[Steltek]

Isn't the problem with hard drives apart from being machines which can break that over the long term they can demagnatise and lose information?

Data loss due to hard drive mechanical failure is statistically far more likely to occur than demagnetization. If the drives are being powered on, demagnetization isn't really an issue and the mean time for failure may exceed 2.5 million hours of use for most typical hard drives (i.e. 250+ years). Of course, no hard drives last that long due to mechanical wear.

That also being said, storage of an unpowered high density hard drive in less than ideal environmental conditions can result in data loss within 5 years or less. In other words, drop it in the bottom of your underwear drawer and YMMV.

In the end, hard drives present a conundrum. You have to power and use them to maintain the data, but powering and using them will also introduce mechanical wear that will eventually result in mechanical faults that will ultimately destroy the drives and the data.

Which, is why critical data needs to be backed up in multiple places, with both local physical and non-local cloud storage being the best two simultaneous options provided you can afford it. If you can't afford both, you do what you can do and hope it is enough.

New permanent 3d data storage mediums using both glass and quartz are currently in investigational stages. As stated previously, they do require femtosecond lasers, though, so they will remain out of reach financially for anybody less rich than a government, the largest companies, or the 1% ultra rich with money to burn like the Elon Musks of the world (who have no worries related to this topic as they can already afford ALL the safe cloud storage anyway).

 

[Steltek]

Blu-ray lives on as Verbatim and I-O Data pledge support with new drives and discs

Japan's market sustains Blu-ray as major manufacturers exit worldwide

https://www.techspot.com/news/112034-optical-media-lives-japan-verbatim-o-data-pledge.html

 

[Mantrid-Drone]

I still use DVD-R and disc drives for backup of specific compatible game's console stuff so I still include a DVD Writer in any PC build. I also rip my audio CDs (which I still buy fairly regularly) using the same drive too.

I was debating with myself whether I should include a BR write-able drive in my latest project which, in the UK, you can still find without too much problem from the usual online sellers. In fact USB external ones are quite common, internal less so.

As for disk rot - I have lost one disk burned, not be me, on a commonly found brand in the UK. I'd kept it in a drawer, away from any heat sources for over a decade before discovering it had 'gone'.
But I have others written to Philips DVD-R media, again not by me, which still work and show no signs of ageing which are genuinely over 20 years old.

I know they work because I had cause to use a couple of them recently which had been used to backup data in connection with the aforementioned game's console.

The problem I've found is well used DVD drive lasers ageing - I've had my suspicions about my primary PC's DVD-RW recently as it has started producing an unusually increased number of errors when burning disks. I'd suspect that is going to be at least as much of an issue with using BR for long term archiving as media disk rot.

 

[esquared]

Last I checked, Hard drives were costing about $100 per 4TB and bluray was around $1 per GB ($1.50 for dual layer). That would be about $1000 for a TB of bluray.

That seemed really high to me so I looked.
25 GB BR Verbatim disks are about $51 for pack of 50 disks.
So, a dollar a disk for 25 GB or $0.04/ GB.
The 50 disks spindle is 1.25 TB, or about $40/TB

 

[mindless1]

The topic is dubious at best. HDDs will still be the online backup option. If offline deep storage is acceptable then tape drive. Optical was never, and will never be an option for that. I digress, in that I made several DVDs to send data to friends back the day, but those discs were long ago read to harvest the data and are throwaway media at this point.

For me there was the trust issue. Early on in the CDR era, everyone was saying they should last 50 years, but then I had various brands with shelf rot in only single-digit years.

 

[dlerious]

That seemed really high to me so I looked.
25 GB BR Verbatim disks are about $51 for pack of 50 disks.
So, a dollar a disk for 25 GB or $0.04/ GB.
The 50 disks spindle is 1.25 TB, or about $40/TB

Don't know what I was thinking. Mixed up cost per disk and cost per GB.

 

[dlerious]

The topic is dubious at best. HDDs will still be the online backup option. If offline deep storage is acceptable then tape drive. Optical was never, and will never be an option for that. I digress, in that I made several DVDs to send data to friends back the day, but those discs were long ago read to harvest the data and are throwaway media at this point.

I've looked at LTO every now and then. Tapes seem reasonable cost wise, but the drives are expensive. I think I saw LTO-6 around $1200, LTO-7 around $3000, LTO-8 around $4500 for desktop SAS models brand new. Fibre Channel runs about $10K. I don't really trust ebay for used.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Used hard drives are an option too, normally not ideal but in this economy it's worth a shot. Search "refurbished hard drive" or similar terms on Ebay. Buy at least one more than you need. Zero them all out to force access/write to each sector, and do full SMART test then build a raid array, keep one as a cold spare.

I recently bought some to create a new raid array so I can offload some heavy VMs such as CCTV to it to free up the others. So far so good.

I have been humoring the idea of LTO tapes too for archiving data that I don't access regularly, and for backups. The higher version you go the better bang for the buck per TB, but the more expensive the cost of entry is. Can't quite justify that right now. I sometimes toy with maybe starting a side business where I handle backups for people which would justify the expense (and it would be a tax write off), but that's a big liability to take on.

 

[mindless1]

Ironically I used to do raid arrays of HDDs but now only do that with SSDs, while the HDDs, hold more long term static data so I switched to single copy online and offline redundant USB external HDD backup... because it's not a hardship if I lose access to the data until I flip the switch on a USB hub to bring the offline, online. However this does mean you need to periodically sync them with your app of choice to do so, but keeping the redundant copy offline adds an extra layer of protection.

It's not what I'd consider "enough" for your most important data, but I tend to find that type of data is not needing as much storage capacity so a 3rd or even 4th copy of it isn't as capacity-hungry.