which media is best for storing for years

[asiafan]

after reading few articles bout AVOIDING any Verbatim LTH discs [personally i own 25 piecies and wont buy more ] can b problems for older standalone players] this article http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=34515 i am making copy that LTH ~30 minutes

tellin that TDK and Panasonic ONLY ? worthy to burn media.

[hech54]

None of the above.
Hard drives are HUGE and cheap.

[usually_quiet]

after reading few articles bout AVOIDING any Verbatim LTH discs [personally i own 25 piecies and wont buy more ] can b problems for older standalone players] this article http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=34515 i am making copy that LTH ~30 minutes

tellin that TDK and Panasonic ONLY ? worthy to burn media.

This is old news. I started using Panasonic BD-R media after reading a similar article about the French study. M-disc might be better. It is a different technology that is not dye-based. It is also expensive and currently only LG drives can burn it. I have seen no independent studies on its longevity. (The US Dept. of Defense apparently did test it, but I have't seen the study.)

Although many use only hard drives, those can fail too. A combination of hard drives and optical media isn't a bad strategy.

[jagabo]

Although many use only hard drives, those can fail too.

That's why you have backups. Copying 3 TB off data from one hard drive to another is much faster and easier than copying 3 TB of data from a bunch of Blu-ray discs to more Blu-ray discs.

[asiafan]

hard drive is hard drive what will you do with 1:1 copy of your own original 50gb blu ray disc? nothing you need to burn it @ bd-re or simply open main movie file @ vlc.

"Current" days HDD are goin down much faster than previous years thats why i am not buying anymore disks with more than 500gb.
I am not against with any1 of You but how much THIS LTH and HTL is changed since this article?

I will propably go to buy JVC disc but righ now almost all disc are manufactured in Taiwan i dont know if its better than MBI India.

Anyway something is with this verbatim LTH as i am burning them faster than making copy. 50gbs is diffrent story

Right now current Verbatim id is CMC


Last again will ask all of You as i still own 10 pieces of this 25gb LTH do i need to sell them? or can burn them with no worries?

i own LG BDRE from 2009 and same year LG blu ray player which is playing tons of files and it really really good player.

[usually_quiet]

Verbatim LTH and HTL media has not changed. So, no it is not good for long-term storage. Sell your remaining LTH BD-R discs unless you only need to store video for a short time.

[imhh1]

2 HDD in raid1 is a very safe bet.

[_Al_]

Raid1 is not a back up, it is a convenience if one hardisk fails to mirror it again but it is not a back up.
You get some failure going on with the whole unit, whatever reason and you loose data.
You need to have data backed up on different units, one possibly out of power, disconnected, or be surge protected, even network, or even have them on different location.

[fritzi93]

hard drive is hard drive what will you do with 1:1 copy of your own original 50gb blu ray disc? nothing you need to burn it @ bd-re ...

You can make an ISO image easily enough and store it on a hard drive, if your purpose is to store it. And rewritables (any brand) are not a good idea for long-term storage.

Anyway, yes, hard drives are huge and cheap now. Just a few years ago, the "sweet spot" for price/capacity was 2 TB. Then it was, briefly, 3 TB. Now you can get a 4 TB drive for as low as $130 bucks if you're patient. And I see Newegg has a Seagate 5 TB drive in a USB3 external enclosure for $160 on special. If someone had told me ten years ago that hard drive capacity would be so large and cheap in 2014, I wouldn't have believed it.

I prefer putting backups on two USB3 externals, for redundancy. You can power them down when not in use, of course.

[hech54]

I am also "guilty" of having backups of backups of backups....CD, DVD and HDD. Same important stuff (family photos and videos) on all 3 mediums.

[asiafan]

Verbatim LTH and HTL media has not changed. So, no it is not good for long-term storage. Sell your remaining LTH BD-R discs unless you only need to store video for a short time.

yep and i will go back to blue TDK again



some buddy said he burned over 1000 blu rays from weddings and none disc was problematic

i am pissed that i founded that article so late now i got 10 blu rays LTH and yep looks like i need to sell it.

[sophisticles]

I cast my vote for a USB 3 external hard drive, I recently picked up a 5tb for $190, most people don't have 5tb worth of storage total and for the price you can't go wrong.

[dragonkeeper]

Huge hard drives? Really?
Drive mirroring has no parity aka poor mans backup. Raid 5 has a fault tolerance of 1 failed drive and I wouldn't use drives over 2TB in a raid configuration. As drives becomes larger the rebuild time increase as rebuild time increase so does the likelihood that a second drive will fail during the rebuild process and all data will be loss unless using raid 6 which is tolerant of up two hard drives failing. These raid implementations can be costly, raid 5 has a minimum requirement of 3 hard drives and raid 6 has a requirement of 4 hard drives. As a general rule of thumb with raid 5 you have 75% of total drive space available for storage, with raid 6 that percentage drops to 50% of total storage available for storage.

Check out the following link for more details on this if you like there have been a great many in depth papers written on subject of raid reliability in conjunction with large hard drives (this link is more of a quick read);
http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/raid-6.htm

If the op is only looking to store a few TB then the cost of a raid setup is not to steep, but as in my case it kinda becomes prohibitive just due to the sheer size of the data one has. I have over 700 BD disk and another 1000 or so DVD. I have a portion of my moves and TV shows stored on hard drives, I'm currently using almost 30 TB storage space and will be at 40 TB of storage before the year is out. I'm just continually upgrading hard drives it seems. At one point I had 12 1TB drives then upgraded most of those drives to 2TB drives. I'm starting to run out of space again so I have now begun upgrading the 2TB drives to 4TB drives. It would appear I have a serious case of HardDriveupgradeitus with no cure in sight.

IMO if you just want to store home video and pictures go for good a grade of optical media it will be easier/cheaper. But if you are trying to back up an ever growing video collection you better have deep pockets, very deep pockets. I have associates who have more than twice the storage space i have and are utilizing every bit of it. Pun intended.

[Eric-jan]

Ha,Ha, you only can tell after some years, problem is the playing equipment should still be around,(also that gets outdated) now i can tell you VHS is a good (30 years) format if properly stored under good conditions. HDD SSD interfaces change too.
Optical discs with good layer protection, and stored in dark place will also do, i know out of own experience.

[Bernix]

When resurected. You can still buy new 3,5'' disc and mechanics when you want. Brand new. In feature I bet there will be company they will be able to read VHS. But VHS is very very low resolution and can't store data. Probably with some modification yes. Remember Atari800XL with ordinary cassette tapes with data on it. But not too much reliable. Use your source media for recording only once. Store them as best as you can. Probably best solution can be some LTO tape driver but it will cost you fortune. On other hand, our whole retirement system relly on its backup as far as i know. Bernix

[blud7]

Why this 4 year old thread?
I think OP is only interested in burning discs and not in external storage. Probably for playback? IDK. IMO hard drives are the way to go, and you can play your ISO or BD folder with software.

[Eric-jan]

Hard drives will fail, and should be maintained in a raid config.

[Bernix]

which media is best for storing for years <- is name of the topic. I didn't bring it to life. And best is what I mentioned. Institutions lean on this solution.
BTW asking for BEST is worst thing.


Bernix


Edited because text was cut off after save.

[jagabo]

If you mean write once and have it readable 1000 years from now -- stone tablets. Gold tablets are even better but they cost a bit more.

2000 years old and still readable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

[Cornucopia]

Gold is too soft. Platinum or Diamond tablets are better.

Seriously, I don't know why this old thread was resurrected, but my 2cents:
1. All media will fail at some point, which is why you should ALWAYS have multiple backups of desired data, preferably on different media and preferably (stored) in different locations (incl. cloud).
2. RAID is great for running OPERATIONAL data security, or OPERATIONAL data speedup, or both (though always at the cost of storage overhead). RAID should not be considered backup (which is semi- or fully- offline).
3. One should always have not only the storage media available for proper restoration, but also that media's playback system. Many people forget this. Optical discs need O.D. drives/readers. IDE/PATA hard drives need an IDE/PATA connector/adapter. SATA & USB are good for now as they are still current, but those will need to have some way of connecting down the road. Cloud storage is good for now, but what if the app used to access becomes defunct? Same issues.

Scott

[_Al_]

If you mean write once and have it readable 1000 years from now -- stone tablets. Gold tablets are even better but they cost a bit more.

2000 years old and still readable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

..and it looks those ancients used Raid set up as well, it mirrors three times there

[jagabo]

Nasa chose to use gold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

[usually_quiet]

Ha,Ha, you only can tell after some years, problem is the playing equipment should still be around,(also that gets outdated) now i can tell you VHS is a good (30 years) format if properly stored under good conditions. HDD SSD interfaces change too.
Optical discs with good layer protection, and stored in dark place will also do, i know out of own experience.

FYI the site administrator added the "old thread warning" to discourage people from reviving old threads without a good reason. Posting just to add your two cents to a long-dead discussion does not qualify as a good reason.

[JVRaines]

posting just to add your two cents to a long-dead discussion does not qualify as a good reason.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

[usually_quiet]

posting just to add your two cents to a long-dead discussion does not qualify as a good reason.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Yes, your reply certainly is the perfect example of a post which serves absolutely no purpose being added to an old thread. Thanks.

[victoriabears]

Does the team think , ................that hard drives stored for , say even a year or more, and not connected or "activated" with data on are more likely to fail than those kept in , say a NAS rotating regularly. I have just found in my life, electronics lightly used fail more than regularly used.

[Eric-jan]

What you should do is to have a good controlled temperature envourement where the NAS is placed, or use 2.5" drives, 2.5" will not get hot by daily use.
There isn't really a media format or device that can promiise longevity, VHS didn't do it as worse as they thought it would do, way back, decades ago, it's allways... time will tell.
The medium shouldn't be organic material like that was used in cdr's.
My guess is some kind of gold material or mineral materials that won't oxidize or that can withstand extreme temperatures, but that would not be affordable, so it should be something of both "worlds"