Blu Ray data backup

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The margin on HDD's is pretty slim, if Seagate or WD were selling drives at an 80% RMA rate they woud be out of business so quick. The RMA rate is probably less than 1%.

Anyway, back to the topic.
I would go with HDD backup. It offers far better capacity/dollar than a Blu-Ray discs (ignoring the burner and software) and is a lot more convenient. Also, how much is your time worth? If you have 100GB of data to back up, how long would that take a Blu-Ray to burn and over how many discs?
I can understand the reliability argument, but then the solution is too backup everything to a HDD, and burn the most important stuff to a disc (M-Disc is perfect for archiving).

SlitWeaver

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I think mainly optical backups are "out of date" (even though people still use tapes...). I actually considered buying a Blu-Ray burner and some Blu-Ray discs instead of HDDs because HDDs are at an all-time low for quality... In the end, I opted to get some cloud storage space. I can't backup my whole hard drive or anything, but I can backup the important things :)
 

JPNpower

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I'm fine with out of date. So there seems to be no data corruption or easy data loss or anything? I ask this because optical media seem a lot more reliable to me than wobbly ol' magnetic drives.

Unfortunately, I don't trust cloud storage as I deal with some pretty sensitive data a lot, due to my work
 

SlitWeaver

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Yeah. You might make two or three copies of each disc, just to be sure! :D I know that you should never leave optical media in sunlight though, the UV radiation and stuff destroys the data on the discs.

I didn't trust cloud storage at first either, but I've grown to accept it :p There are cloud storage solutions that provide real-time encryption so they could not read it even if they wanted to. Granted, a 1MB files is going to take 10 minutes to upload because of that, but hey, you do whatcha gotta do!

Good luck on your storage endeavors!
 

JPNpower

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Then which would YOU recommend?
(1) invest in bluray drive and disks. end up with solid optical backup(s) and a bluray burner for other stuff.

(2) invest in an external hard drive. have the ability to overwrite.
 

ikaz

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Well you probably could set up a small raid Nas box for the cost of a blu ray drive and media over the course of a year depending on how many backup you plan to do. Even if you just do a simile mirror raid setup.
 

JPNpower

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Never understood how NAS boxes work. I'll try decoding the Wiki article again, but can you expain to me the benefit of it compared to a normal external HDD backup.
 

popatim

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The difference is
- anyone on the network can access the nas if its setup that way (and it usually is out of the box)
- if you get a nice box, expanding the storage capacity is as easy as installing another disk.
- you're not going to drop your nas going from one pc to another. LoL

con
- nas is limited to your network speed so if you dont have a full gigabit setup then backups will be slow.
 

SlitWeaver

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Until I stop seeing 80% failure rates on HDDs right now, I don't really feel safe investing in any disk-based storage :/ I've been wanting to upgrade my cruddy HDD for awhile, finally get around to having he extra money and BAM an obscene amount of DOA and dead within month drives :/ No thanks! :p
 

popatim

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stop buying any old cheap drives; do research before you buy. 80% is obscene!
I have near 100% success rate. Two drives failed on me in the last 2 years and thats because my basement flooded and submerged my server. WD covered them under warranty fwiw.

And I use alot of drives.
 
The margin on HDD's is pretty slim, if Seagate or WD were selling drives at an 80% RMA rate they woud be out of business so quick. The RMA rate is probably less than 1%.

Anyway, back to the topic.
I would go with HDD backup. It offers far better capacity/dollar than a Blu-Ray discs (ignoring the burner and software) and is a lot more convenient. Also, how much is your time worth? If you have 100GB of data to back up, how long would that take a Blu-Ray to burn and over how many discs?
I can understand the reliability argument, but then the solution is too backup everything to a HDD, and burn the most important stuff to a disc (M-Disc is perfect for archiving).
 
Solution

ikaz

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Also with something like a NAS box or even just an external drive you can set schedules so maybe you back up at 1am while your sleeping. With a CD/Blu ray based solution you will proablaby have to sit there (or be close by) and swap disks.
 

SlitWeaver

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Look at recent comments on any drive, like the WD Black, and you'll see tons failures in under 6 months, DOAs out the wazoo, etc. Yes, 80% is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by a whole lot...As far as I can tell, SSDs have a lower percentage of DOAs than HDDs now; that's pretty pathetic :p I have an older HDD, it's been going for 2-3 years strong and I have complete faith in it; however, I lack faith in buying a new HDD right now.

JPNPower, if you do buy some HDDs, I would recommend Seagate or Samsung drives. :) (While we're on hard drives, you should check this out, kind of scary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_hard_disk_manufacturers )
 

JPNpower

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I've heard too much considering the big WD v.s. Seagate, and so far I hear that they are pretty much equal in terms of reliablility (=good but still too low), so I'll stick with WD as I've used them often with good results. However I'd love to hear your experiences and opinions. I've heard from a close friend to avoid Seagate like the plague. I've heard that Samsung HDDs are dead, and that Toshiba's a good. I usually keep a dual backup, one internal (very fast, frequent), and one external (very slow, infrequent, usualy disconnected) If you have any better setup suggestion, please tell me.
 
I use Seagate drives, but that was purely an economical choice as they were far cheaper when I was buying. WD stuck to post-flood prices long after the other manufacturers dropped theirs. IMO, both are the same in terms of quality and performance (7200RPM drives are just commodity now, their all the same), go for whichever's cheaper.
WD does have a 5yr warranty versus Seagates 2yr, but a HDD will fail in the first three months or never pretty much.