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Storage: DAT or blu-ray?
DAT or blu-ray?
by rglukov - 10/25/07 3:30 PMWith Blu-Ray gaining in popularity, and prices dropping, is it going to replace DVDs as the preferred high capacity storage media? I havent seen new PCs with blue-ray or HD drives installed yet.
I have 3 options at this point: stick with DVD's, buy external HDD or tape storage(DDS/DAT). DDS-3 is 12gb & DDS-4 is 20gb, low tape price per gb and capacity good enough to back up entire HDD to 10 tapes. 2 DDS-3 tapes are about $5, drive $150, while 25gb Blue-Ray is $20; drives are over $600!
What I am worried about is if the tape drive dies, a replacement will be hard to find or the technology becoming obsolete such as JAZ, ZIP, LS-120, Syquest, Syjet, SparQ, etc.
Proprietary technology never succeeds it appears.
Since everyone has DVD drives, I guess despite the lower capacity it wins out.
I am planning to store the back-ups off-site, in a safe deposit box at the bank, or my uncle's garage; thus, whatever I choose it cant take up too much space.
This was easy to figure out.
by R. Proffitt
- 10/25/07 4:08 PM
In reply to: DAT or blu-ray? by rglukov
How much is a backup worth? At the office they spent 12 grand to recover a hard disk. I had from that time on a clear number of what backups should cost and the few dollars you offered never approach the cost of recovery.
We use DLTs...
Bob
Neither - you want external hard disks
by ElmoKajaky - 10/26/07 5:16 PM In reply to: DAT or blu-ray? by rglukovI have terabytes of information to backup (I've been digitizing a lot of home movies), and I've found that the only way to easily back up that much data these days is to copy to multiple external hard disks. Hard disks are really coming down in price - you can easily get a 750 GB hard disk for about $175. 500 GB is closer to $100.
Back up to the external hard disk, unplug it, take it to your offsite backup location. Boom, you're done. No need to swap all those tapes, or to spend the zillions of dollars that it would cost to use BluRay. Also, hard disks will never go obsolete (or if they do, you'll have plenty of time to copy the data over to the new holographic positronic data cube format, or quantum antimatter storage, or whatever they use in 30 years).
for most ppl, ext hdd is practical for backups and .......
by ackmondual - 10/27/07 4:04 PM In reply to: DAT or blu-ray? by rglukovlesser long term storage...... For long term storage, not so much so.
External hadrdrives are great for most ppl since:
-cheap given the GB per $$ ratio
-flexible as u can put stuff on there but delete it to make room for more important things. Optical recordable discs can never be modified once burned to, and ReWritable discs have issues in some burner softwares may not be able read data written by anotehr type of burner sw
-easy to use. Plug into USB port, drag and drop. Again, no burner software to bother with
-ubiquitous. Unlike a zip drive or DVD media which has +/- formats, and HDDVD and BR discs which won't catch on mainstream for another estimated 8 years, USB ports and ext HDs are everywhere.
I've mentioned some cons about optical media. However, if you wnat someth for long term storages, like familiy photos on a CD or DVD to preserve 20 years down the line for future generations, I'd keep a copy of them on discs in addition to ext HDs, since HDs can fail given time, tho less so if not used.
Tape drives appear to be used by corporations and big companies to address the same cons about ext HDDs for stoarge. Again, they're MUCH better suited for archiving as oppsoed to backups since they're slow in operation. They do have longevity. Many years back, one company even made a type of tape drive that could withstand boiling water and freezer environments. It was demonstrated so by backing data to 2 sets of tape drive media. One was thrown in with a pot of spaghetti being boiled, the other was stuffed in the freezer with meat. Both sets were used to attempt retreiving data on them and the data was still there just fine!
Mmm, data...
by ElmoKajaky - 10/27/07 4:48 PM In reply to: for most ppl, ext hdd is practical for backups and ....... by ackmondualSpaghetti and data, yum! That's hilarious...
I deal with the "a hard disk might fail" problem by using multiple hard disks. Kind of like RAID in that sense.
I think if you keep a hard disk disconnected and put it back in its static-resistant bag, styrofoam padding, and box, and store it in a cool dry place, it should last quite a bit longer than if you keep it connected and running. Heat is your enemy.
Whatever you do, if you value your data and it can't be replaced, make sure you have multiple copies in multiple locations, preferably multiple cities or states. One fire or flood and boom! Bye bye data.
I have digitized home movies from as far back as the 1930s, and I hope to pass it on to my great great great grandchildren, assuming the planet survives!
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