Topic: Has any one started to use blu-ray for backing up...

[Joeski]

all the music files we all own?  Any suggestions.  I have had 2 Seagate 1TB shit the bed on me in the last year .  One with 700 GB and now one with 600 GB.  I figure with blu-ray if I loose a disc it's only 25 to 40 GB and this Seagate stuff is really killing me.

[keytohwy]

all the music files we all own?  Any suggestions.  I have had 2 Seagate 1TB shit the bed on me in the last year .  One with 700 GB and now one with 600 GB.  I figure with blu-ray if I loose a disc it's only 25 to 40 GB and this Seagate stuff is really killing me.

The price per GB is still too high.  Are you not making redundant copies.  2x1TB HD are not under $200.  A BR burner costs about that, before you buy any media.  So...

[fozzy]

The price per GB is still too high. 

Single layer DVD still has the best price point per GB.  Dual Layer DVD and Blu-ray are about the same for quality discs.

It took 4-5 years for the price point of CD-R to equal the DVD price point.

Once 4+ layer blu-ray becomes available i think there may be a price drop, but not anytime soon. 

[imgoinmad]

bluray is far too expensive and slow. DVD also way to slow and not enough data. The best most economic and safe thing for your files is to get the 'mirror' drives...they have 2 hard drives in them which both write the same data. If one of the 2 drives fails, your data is still safe on the second. I've started to use these for all my storage needs

Something like these http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=466
2x1tb drives $250  Obviously people are tempted to use these as a 2TB drive but IMO, it's well worth having the data protection

[Scooter123]

SATA has the cheapest storage cost per GB.  I got a Hitachi 1.5TB SATA drive for $140 this weekend. 

[fozzy]

bluray is far too expensive and slow. DVD also way to slow and not enough data. The best most economic and safe thing for your files is to get the 'mirror' drives...they have 2 hard drives in them which both write the same data. If one of the 2 drives fails, your data is still safe on the second. I've started to use these for all my storage needs

Something like these http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=466
2x1tb drives $250  Obviously people are tempted to use these as a 2TB drive but IMO, it's well worth having the data protection

the problem with this is if the chassis is lost or damaged, also some of the drives in these units will not work w/o the original chassis, ie you can just disassemble it and plug it into a computer.

Having worked in IT for the past 15+ years I don't trust hard drives.  They fail.  I would imagine in ~10 years a SATA connection is going to be hard to find.

I use only Verbatim DataLife Plus discs.  These are stated to have at least 100 year shelf life if properly cared for.  The oldest media I have is ~15 years on Verbatim DataLife Plus CD-R and i have gone back to them occasionally and they still work flawlessly.  I have several other brands of media that are 15-10 years old and the only other media that doesn't show signs of degradation is some really old Kodak branded gold media. 

My current backup strategy involves involves a DVD+R backup(office), two separate external Drive backups(1 home, 1 office) and live storage on a RAID5 array(home).  I use this strategy for recordings, pictures and personal files(encrypted).  As I fill up boxes that hold ~200 DVDs I bring them to my Parents house half way across the country for long term storage. 

[Scooter123]

I don't trust SATA either, thats why I use RAID 5. If one drive goes down, you got others.   RAID 6 has two redundant drives.

And I have a second back up which is a cheap Seagate drive(s).

I have also had DVDs and CDRs get corrupted.  There is something about the ink degrading, and Verbatim disks are no exception.  I have over 3 TB of music.  The idea of backing that to individual media is frightening. 

Now if you have both a hard drive and CDR back up, you're golden.

Bottom Line back up frequently and have multiple back ups. 

[fozzy]

Bottom Line back up frequently and have multiple back ups.

QFT

[Scooter123]

Here's a nice 4 port SATA Array, only about $350.  With RAID 5 you would max out at 6TB with 2TB redundancy.  Or using  very economical 500g Sata's you'd max out 1.5TB with 500g redundancy. 

[imgoinmad]

I've started to use these for all my storage needs  http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=466
2x1tb drives $250  Obviously people are tempted to use these as a 2TB drive but IMO, it's well worth having the data protection

the problem with this is if the chassis is lost or damaged, also some of the drives in these units will not work w/o the original chassis, ie you can just disassemble it and plug it into a computer.

Having worked in IT for the past 15+ years I don't trust hard drives.  They fail.  I would imagine in ~10 years a SATA connection is going to be hard to find.

I use only Verbatim DataLife Plus discs.  These are stated to have at least 100 year shelf life if properly cared for.  The oldest media I have is ~15 years on Verbatim DataLife Plus CD-R and i have gone back to them occasionally and they still work flawlessly.  I have several other brands of media that are 15-10 years old and the only other media that doesn't show signs of degradation is some really old Kodak branded gold media. 

My current backup strategy involves involves a DVD+R backup(office), two separate external Drive backups(1 home, 1 office) and live storage on a RAID5 array(home).  I use this strategy for recordings, pictures and personal files(encrypted).  As I fill up boxes that hold ~200 DVDs I bring them to my Parents house half way across the country for long term storage.

I've never seen a unit like this not give you retrievable data when the drives are mirrored, you can genearlly pull the drive and connect it to another computer. I learned my lesson with optical discs. Rated for 100 years or not, i've got probably 8 spindles of discs which are completely unreadable. After losing those backups I decided to do a dual hard drive backup, chances of both drives failing is slim, and my backup usually goes on the shelf after being filled so they're not subjected to the heat issues which generally cause drives to fail.

[phanophish]

I just picked up a Blue Ray burner.  Single Layer discs (25GB) are down to about $2.00 each if you catch a decent sale.  Still got to get it installed but I may use it for some backup.  I mainly picked it up for HD video.

My main storage is a Drobo.  Fairly cost effective and super flexible. 

[Sebastian]

Generally I wouldn't recommend using optical discs for long-time storage. It took years for CD-Rs and DVD-Rs to become as reliable as they are today, so I don't think BD-Rs can be trusted yet.

Personally, I have my whole collection on SATA hard disks that I only use when I want to listen to a certain recording. I keep separate copies of my masters, pictures and other personal files on a second hard disk (different brand/model than the other hard disks).

[Joeski]

Wow guys, thanks for the tips. I will have to research this with a fresh head in the morning.  I almost pulled the trigger on the blu-ray but I'm going to research a whole lot more.

What sites can you all recommend to find a data recovery software and names of these things like SATA, mirrored hard drives and those kind of things.  I'd like to get way more educated.

Thank You Very Much.

[phanophish]

Wow guys, thanks for the tips. I will have to research this with a fresh head in the morning.  I almost pulled the trigger on the blu-ray but I'm going to research a whole lot more.

What sites can you all recommend to find a data recovery software and names of these things like SATA, mirrored hard drives and those kind of things.  I'd like to get way more educated.

Thank You Very Much.

SATA is simply the interface for the hard drive, not a storage technology.  There is nothing about SATA that has any impact whatsoever on the reliability of a given storage medium.  The concern is hard drives do fail and having more than one copy of your data is a requirement if you want to be sure it is secure.  Ideally you need to maintain a off site copy of critical data so that a single event (flood, fire, theft, etc) does not wipe it out.  It does no good to have a copy of your data on a second drive that gets stolen along with your PC that has the primary copy.

RAID is a method of creating redundancy in hard drive storage to minimize the impact of the failure of a single drive.  RAID 1 & RAID 5 are the most common methods if redundancy & storage efficiency is your goal.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels  RAID should not be substitute for an off site backup as there can still be failures with RAID.  For example a RAID controller can fail corrupting the array or a power surge could take out multiple drives simultaneously causing the redundancy to be inadequate to protect your data.

One thing I like about the Drobo is it essentially uses a slightly modified version of RAID 5 to provide data redundancy while taking the normal drawbacks of RAID 5 (identical hard drives and no expansion capability) and making it a very easy to use and expand storage solution.  Everything I store on my Drobo however is still backed up off site or as a minimum on a single external drive depending in it's criticality.   http://www.drobo.com/resources/index.php

[stevetoney]

Can anyone recommend a website with instructions for drive data restoration...or does anyone know how to do this?  Looks like I have a failure and like a COMPLETE doofus (since I have redundant drives and have a good data backup plan) I inadvertently allowed a fairly large batch of photo's to go un-backed up.  DAMMIT!  Fortunately, I'd backed-up all of my audio masters up, but the photos for some reason slipped under my radar.  It's a pisser because, as mentioned I've implemented a fairly detailed (and I think quite flawless) data back-up plan.  So, I'd purchased the necessary redundancy for my system and have I think 5 functional drives (check...make that four) for data storage and back-up. 

The good news in this though is that I have a duplicate model of the drive that failed, so perhaps someone can recommend a procedure for swapping parts so that I can mirror the failed drive using the functional drive.

The lesson learned from this story is that even when you have a great back-up plan and have designed your system, you still have to be diligent to update your data often to avoid losing anything.  In my case, I hadn't backed-up since mid-October and I ended up potentially losing some important photos.