Blu-Ray for Data Backup

My goodness, that's a lot of data. What is this, a Google server?

Don't know much about the software but I'd recommend you consider using an external hard drive for offsite storage. Much cheaper in the long run. I have one that I keep in my home located inside a safe and one that I keep at offsite at work.

Backup to an external USB drive?

I can't answer your question. I just know I'd keep an external hdd off site too. Just curious why you want to go through all thoes disks when you can use another hdd

River-Runner wrote:
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 blu-ray backup program that you can dump say 2 TB of data into the hopper and the program will chew through 100 GB discs, one after the other - automatically - until a complete backup is complete. I used to do this with Roxio on CD's, sometime more than 20 CD's - but I understand Roxio isn't the same - one site said it is full of bloatware.

Please recommend a program that will provide for automatic blu-ray backups.

Thanks -

NERO Burning Rom has a backup feature, you point it at a folder or drive, and it tells you how many discs.

100GB is the new BDXL format, make sure your drive supports triple-layer discs BDXL discs before buying those expensive pieces of plastic :)

For what it's worth / JMHO:
A single BDXL disc is in the neighborhood of $40-50, compared to a fast 1TB hard disk or slow 3TB drive around $100, you might want to consider them as an alternative.

I bought a Bluray burner more for archiving files than to burn movies. In fact, I still have not burned a movie to Bluray BD-R, but have made a number of shorter Bluray videos less than 60 min on regular DVDs.

Blurays are a safer choice for long term permanent storage. In accelerated testing, most BD-Rs were rated for 15-30 years. Archival rated BD-Rs for 100 years.

SSD, Flash drives, or even HDs are fine for backup purpose, but not as safe for permanent storage than recordable discs properly handled - stored upright in moderate temps, low humidity.

Ashampoo Burning Studio FREE allows making backups spanning multiple DVD/Blurays discs. It will tell you how many discs are needed based on your backup size. You can optionally password protect and compress backups.

I was curious about how long the BD-R's were expected to last. Of course the disks may last 50 years or more, but will the hardware to access them still be around? :)

fj12ryder wrote:
I was curious about how long the BD-R's were expected to last. Of course the disks may last 50 years or more, but will the hardware to access them still be around? :)

that question can be answered simply by looking at all the formats completely gone from existence. Bernoulli, Jaz, countless streaming drives, and more. IMO, I would buy something like a WD DUO Raid 0 and back it up to the NAS. Nothing has lasted longer than Ethernet.

How do you want to back data up? The 100 gig disks are insanely expensive, where you are better off buying external terabyte drives for the same price. However, the 25 gig BD-R disks are priced at a decent price/gigabyte ratio.

What I would do is one of three things:

1: Separate your data into 22 gig segments, then use Nero Burning ROM with its SecureDisk feature to burn the segments with some error correction. You can also add a cryptographic signature, as well as encryption if you want for each disk.

2: Make a massive, segmented WinRAR archive, perhaps with 2-3 recovery volumes to take into account for failed Blu-Ray disks. Then, burn each volume using #1 above.

3: Use a backup program. I used to swear by Retrospect, but their compatibility list is so narrow for drives, that the utility is all but worthless (if the drive is not on the list, Retrospect will not work with it, period.) One used to be able to manually configure a drive to work with it, but apparently that is gone now with the latest few versions.

The caveat about #3, although it is the easiest, is that you have to have the backup program and its serial number in the future. With #1 and #2, you can just copy the files off, or extract them. No utility needed.