Blu-Ray for Data Backup
I want to use my Blu-Ray burner to backup my PC data. I have a 3 TB data HDD and I want to use 100 GB discs to make hard copy backups for offsite - I also do an external HDD.. Does anyone have a b...
Forum Discussion
I've been in IT for ages... hard disks are not archival media. In fact, I have a file cabinet with tapes from 1998, burned CD-Rs from 1998, HDDs from 1998, and MO-s from that time period. The old IDE hard disks are almost impossible to read since IDE PCIe controllers are becoming tougher and tougher to find. Even with older hardware, some of them suffer from stiction, or just sit there clicking away, trying to find the servo marks. The tape drive (Quantum DLT IV) is hard to find, as well as a controller card that works with the old LVD SCSI of its day. Of course, once the tape drive is working, it will be trying to find the right backup utility. Was it tar, taper, NetBackup, Backup Exec, Retrospect, or some other oddball utility that has disappeared into the mists of time?
The CD-R? I open my Blu-Ray player, plop it in, and the data is ready to go.
The reason why Blu-Ray isn't going anywhere is the fact that US Internet bandwidth is not expanding, other than fees going up. With that in mind, I can burn data to ten 25 GB Blu-Ray disks for about $5. Storing that to the cloud would get me $40 in bandwidth overage costs on my home internet connection, and thousands if I tried that over a 4G link.
Of course, as stated above, no media is 100%, so I recommend to make multiple copies, perhaps on different media types (Blu-Ray and DVD for example.)
The CD-R? I open my Blu-Ray player, plop it in, and the data is ready to go.
The reason why Blu-Ray isn't going anywhere is the fact that US Internet bandwidth is not expanding, other than fees going up. With that in mind, I can burn data to ten 25 GB Blu-Ray disks for about $5. Storing that to the cloud would get me $40 in bandwidth overage costs on my home internet connection, and thousands if I tried that over a 4G link.
Of course, as stated above, no media is 100%, so I recommend to make multiple copies, perhaps on different media types (Blu-Ray and DVD for example.)
