Why I like BD recordable.

[Belgian_Waffle]

Memorex once had a slogan which expresses what I believe is one of the 'first principles' of computers and computing. It is for computers what the principles of thermodynamics and gravity are to physics; and it goes like this: "There are only two kind of data: 1) Data that has been backed up. 2) Data that hasn't been lost yet."

With hard drives of 200gb+ now commonly being used in pc's (I have 3 drives of this capacity or greater in one of my pc's) there has been a tremendous gap in backup media to protect one's data. Whether you use your pc as a PVR or you are a digital artist or you manage ANY large amount of data, those handy-dandy 4.7gb recordable dvd's just aren't gonna do it. Forget debating about the relative sizes of various movie files. As far as your computer is concerned, anything on your hard drive is just "stuff". And if the only copy of that "stuff" is sitting on your hard drive....well, there are only two kind of data.

Hard drive capacity is increasing faster than the media available to back it up. By the time 25 and 50gb BD drives/media comes down in price, we will be using 700gb hard drives (ie:Seagate vertical stripe technology), so the only professional solution for backup is mirrored, or duplicate, sets of hard drives (preferably mounted in a separate dedicated 'box' to minimize data loss due to 'finger-poken').

That being said - for those of us with needs in the 200gb range, having access to 25 and 50gb backup media is manna from heaven.

[theknub]

i agree 100% with you.

and as a side note, i saw an ad for a 750 gb seagate today in the paper

[hmurchison]

While I agree that backup is important I'm not that enthralled with Blu-ray as a backup medium for two main reasons.

50GB is too small and 72Mbps or even 144Mbps is too slow. Tape is still going to be the best archival medium for offline storage and HDD will be the best for nearline storage.

Some of the higher density optical formats will make for better optical backups IMO.

[Belgian_Waffle]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

While I agree that backup is important I'm not that enthralled with Blu-ray as a backup medium for two main reasons.

50GB is too small and 72Mbps or even 144Mbps is too slow. Tape is still going to be the best archival medium for offline storage and HDD will be the best for nearline storage.

Some of the higher density optical formats will make for better optical backups IMO.

After your post I did some looking into digital tape. It seems I've been out of touch for a while. I haven't personally used tape backups since a while back when capacity was in the 4gb range. With tape available ranging between 40-400gb native, I concede you have a good point. Does anyone out there have any experience with tape backups in these ranges who can tell us how long it takes to backup 200gb?

However, keep in mind than the number of home pc's with digital tape drives is a miniscule number hovering in the very close vicinity of zero. Whereas almost every pc now comes with a DL-DVD optical drive. Whatever high-capacity optical standard emerges, I think that's where the consumer will follow. 'Tape' has, historically speaking, been something only IT professionals understand and feel comfortable using as it requires a formal strategy, discipline, adequate redundancy and considerable cost to implement effectively.

[Sosmither]

Blu-ray is definitely going to help out when it comes to backing up your hard drive. It is very important to back up your important information. I learned that the hard way. I use to have 850 songs that I loved so dearly. Then one day I got a computer worm or something like that. Next thing you know I lose My entire hard drive!1 Agh!!!! ...I was sooo mad. So backing up your information is important. You are also right about hard drive space getting bigger and bigger. Blu-ray should be able to provide ample space for backing up important data.

Great Post!! Two Thumbs up!

[hmurchison]

Belgian_Waffle (I love those man)

It really comes down to cost. If we can buy 50GB discs for $5-8 in a few years then I see no reason to buy tape for most consumers and small business.

I think the lure of 200-800GB is too important for Small Biz companies on up. So many damn regulations nowadays. We'll see I see Sony delivering a BD data disc at 100GB in a couple of years. I remain a bit skeptical but hopeful for low cost optical storage.

[thunderhawk]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Belgian_Waffle (I love those man)

I know I'm spoiled.

Originally Posted by hmurchison

It really comes down to cost. If we can buy 50GB discs for $5-8 in a few years then I see no reason to buy tape for most consumers and small business.

I think the lure of 200-800GB is too important for Small Biz companies on up. So many damn regulations nowadays. We'll see I see Sony delivering a BD data disc at 100GB in a couple of years. I remain a bit skeptical but hopeful for low cost optical storage.

Too bad they're going to release it that late...

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

It really comes down to cost. If we can buy 50GB discs for $5-8 in a few years then I see no reason to buy tape for most consumers and small business.

I think the lure of 200-800GB is too important for Small Biz companies on up. So many damn regulations nowadays. We'll see I see Sony delivering a BD data disc at 100GB in a couple of years. I remain a bit skeptical but hopeful for low cost optical storage.

There are some applications (like accounting and medical records) that require an immutable storage mechanism. And there are several BD jukeboxes announced for that market. But, for most small biz and above the volume of data would tend to be too big to make disc use cost and effort effective. Then again, HVD could be the answer there very soon.

But, for consumers, a large capacity optical disc drive which has alternate uses is better than nothing at all. But, only if the costs come down. Perhaps a networked media box with a burner will offer itself as a backup device in the future.

I am not confident that multi-layer recordable media will ever be cost effective. It has been 2.5 years for DVD, and they are still relatively expensive, indicating the yields must still be pretty lousy.

Perhaps since BD is designed to be a recordable medium from the beginning, there can be an inversion of the cost curve when 100 and 200 GB discs are released. 100/200GB RE would provide a nice size backup capacity. And the stability of media should be pretty good.

Tape is great, as long as you can read it in ten years. It's 20+ years and still going strong for CD. So, optical discs with varied applicability do have a benefit over a dedicated backup methodology. The standards are likely to remain accessible indefinitely.

Gary

[Dave]

Blu-Ray with its 100GB and 200GB possible variants is the ultimate optical storage solution ever to exist.
No other format (including hd dvd) is even close to that

[Don Blish]

As manager of information systems, (sequential) tape backups (4mmDAT) saved my butt on more than one occasion. However, the tape is only good if you have the exact drive hardware and backup software to retrieve it - not really an "archival" solution.

For my DV (and now HDV) video use, thats where optical discs shine. I can put dozens of them in my safedeposit box (not the smallest box, but the next size up) and ANY reasonably modern drive will read them. By that, I mean I never use proprietary backup software, just the raw files in native format.

So while my previous backup of MyDocuments (tiny) and MyPictures was 7 DVD4s, this time it was one BD-RE-25 and one DVD. The other beauty is that the BD-RE was one operation (4 hours!) and could take place in the evening when I was at my leisure.