How To Prevent Damage to Your DVDs and Blu-Rays

[StarFuryG7]

How To Prevent Damage to Your DVDs and Blu-Rays

[themp3000]

Wait so I shouldn’t be letting my blu-rays frolic freely in my backyard in this heat?

[meremortal]

Even cleaning dvds can add scratches. That's one reason I really like blus is you can pretty much wipe a bit more carefree with microfibers without having to worry about adding scratches. But dvds in general are arguably very durable, at least.

[Member-839946]

The best way to ensure that you have always have access to what you paid for is to make a back up.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by ReedSolomon

The best way to ensure that you have always have access to what you paid for is to make a back up.

Even the backup isn't safe

[Member-839946]

Originally Posted by drush9999

Even the backup isn't safe

Nothing is safe. Meteor hits Earth today, you have bigger problems.

But in terms of probability, backups can be made arbitrarily "safe". For example, always follow the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy.

Most people never make backups. Ever.
Of those that do, hardly anyone ever keeps them updated.
Of those that do, hardly anyone ever keeps a copy in another location.
Of those that do, hardly anyone ever updates the offsite copy.

Want your data safe? Make frequent backups, keep (at least) an updated backup somewhere other than where you do your work.

I use a little waterproof case (not Pelican, but similar off-brand) holding a "backup set" of hard drives. They're identical copies of the drives in my home server. I have two of these, and one lives at the office.

This sounds complicated, but it's easy. Trivial. And it's not just holding media backups, it has family photos, scans of important documents, etc. Everyone should do something like this, but I don't know anyone else who does. Oh well.

[HD Goofnut]

Yep, 1:1 digital backups are the way to go.