Archival Disc, when?

B

Black5Lion

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
325
So I faintly remember reading on the news a long time ago how Sony and Panasonic were working on the new disc standard "archival disc" which would have capacities of 300GB/500GB/1TB, compared to BluRay's 25GB/50GB/75GB/100GB/125GB.
Anyways, I currently backup all of my stuff on BD-R, because it's cheap, and I'd rather have my things fragmented than on one drive (not going back to HDD archiving after my 3TB Seagate died).
Long story short, is there any estimate on when archival disc would be available? I mean a single archival disc could replace 12 BD-Rs.
Also, IIRC when I saw pictures of the units, they didn't look like normal optical discs, they were these long rectangular drives. Did they change the form factor? Or is it just drives and the discs inside the same size as current optical discs? (I really hope this is the case)
 
Note it's suggested that this isn't a consumer facing product. In other words, expect pricing to be of the "bend over and grab your ankles" variety. :p
 
drescherjm said:
It says 2nd quarter of 2015 here but no updates since last September.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc
Click to expand...
Yeah, I saw that. I was kind of hoping someone would have "inside" information :(
fastgeek said:
Note it's suggested that this isn't a consumer facing product. In other words, expect pricing to be of the "bend over and grab your ankles" variety. :p
Click to expand...

BluRays weren't always affordable. I just think the sooner it actually becomes available the sooner it'll drop in price enough for me to switch over.

I'd much rather be able to fit an entire series in 720p/disc instead of a season/disc. I've actually started ReEncoding stuff in x265 to be able to fit a season per disc.
 
BluRays have to be the slowest growing and adapting tech i have ever seen. We still only have like 50GB disks and they are really really expensive. I found BluRay to be a major let down in terms of capacity and pricing given how long it has been out.
 
The only BluRays I find cost effective are the 25GB ones.
Their price is similar to/slightly better than their HDD counterparts.
One thing I noticed with BD-Rs is that they seem to be much more reliable than CDs/DVDs, I mean I've been using the cheaper brands (Optical Quantum, and ValueDisc) and the only coasters I had were my fault (electricity went out during the burn process/ burned a 4x disc at 14x).

Edit: this is off-topic, but I'd rather not start a new thread.
I've been hanging around myce for a while, and I read a post about how storing discs in sleeve cases could damage them.
So what is the best way to store discs for long periods of time, that won't break the bank?
I currently have my discs in sleeve case (the one that looks like a binder inside with pages that take 8 discs -4/side-).
 
The specification of BD-Rs should make them last quite a bit longer than DVDs once written, as well.

I picked up a couple big packs of those slim CD jewel cases a few years ago. They were on sale at Office Depot, and I got them for pretty much the same reasons. They were fairly cheap, and because they are slim, you can fit probably 2 cases per "standard" CD case.
 
Sams has the slim jewel cases really cheap. I bought like a 50 pack or something. If i bought a hundred and can't even recall the price than it must have been a fair price because I am cheap.

Also i would consider the ideal storage an anti gravity chamber filled with helium to ensure long life.

Again for the BD discs. 25 bucks for a single 100GB disc is stupid expensive and they claimed we would be at 200, 250, 300GB discs on the consumer side by now and be affordable. Psh garbage.
 
SomeGuy133 said:
BluRays have to be the slowest growing and adapting tech i have ever seen. We still only have like 50GB disks and they are really really expensive. I found BluRay to be a major let down in terms of capacity and pricing given how long it has been out.
Click to expand...


I blame the greedy nerds in Hollywood who kept BD Movies/TV Shows at an artificial 50% higher price for about 7 years. Sony's PS3 is the sole reason why BluRay has a market in the first place because Hollywood completely fucked up the technology by overcharging people. Thought they could ride the HD Crazy of the 2006-2012 era and it completely backfired due to the way they handled it.
 
Liger88 said:
I blame the greedy nerds in Hollywood who kept BD Movies/TV Shows at an artificial 50% higher price for about 7 years. Sony's PS3 is the sole reason why BluRay has a market in the first place because Hollywood completely fucked up the technology by overcharging people. Thought they could ride the HD Crazy of the 2006-2012 era and it completely backfired due to the way they handled it.
Click to expand...

not clue what your talking about :/ I just don't buy discs because they lack a concept called skimming (Steam/games pricing) I will either redbox/hulu/netflix or not watch it. Screw those prices.

I am interested in these discs though. I hope they are affordable because i would like to use them.
 
optical is dead, FYI for anyone that hasn't been paying attention
 
DPI said:
optical is dead, FYI for anyone that hasn't been paying attention
Click to expand...

Not for me and many others.
I still use it to keep my backups separate. It would be a shame to have everything on a 3TB HDD and have it crap out on you taking everything.
 
I still use it to keep my backups separate. It would be a shame to have everything on a 3TB HDD and have it crap out on you taking everything.
Click to expand...

That is why you need at least 2 normally offline backups of that 3TB drive preferably at least 1 of the backups stored offsite.
 
What about going for a cheap tape drive? Aren't they a dime a dozen online?
 
Black5Lion,

I don't think that comparing BluRay to this is all that feasible. Honestly can't recall BR burners ever being *that* expensive when they were released to the consumer market. Maybe $250ish? Now they're down to $50 or so. Thing is, it was being released as the successor to DVD, so was always to be consumer facing. This is why I find it interesting that this Archival Disc is being called non-consumer facing right up front.

Also consider the current cost of the 100GB BDXL media, which is roughly $25/ea. Sure, you might find it cheaper on eBay, but that's what most 1-packs are going for. These discs have been around for a couple years now, but the price hasn't dropped much. Can you imagine what the A.D. media might go for?

Oh, speaking of 100GB BDXL discs, if you really want long life, here's something to think about: http://www.mdisc.com/100gb/

Bigdady92 said:
What about going for a cheap tape drive? Aren't they a dime a dozen online?
Click to expand...

I thought about this too when originally reading this post. If you can find some cheap used high capacity tape drives, then it *might* be an option. Otherwise there's not a whole lot of reasonably priced options out there.

DPI said:
optical is dead, FYI for anyone that hasn't been paying attention
Click to expand...

People who keep spouting this nonsense are so cute.
 
I went hunting for tape drives on the cheap. Best one I found was $600 for 400/800GB, tapes were all over the place for pricing.

Looks like the era of Tape backups is over. At this rate it's cheaper to backup to Disk (those seagate SMR disks are nice) and go from there.
 
One thing I noticed was that with Archival Disc you'd supposedly write on both sides of the disc with each side having 3 layers.
I don't really trust dual layer disc let alone 2x 3 layers :(
Also if fastgeek is right, it might not be any better if it's more expensive than HDDs. :(

One more thing, Bigdady92 please steer clear from Seagate drives, I'm speaking from experience here. really really bad experience.
 
agree

in terms of backup its much cheaper to get extra nas or two with a high capacity satas in a mirror

also blurays are not really usable for data vaulting

SomeGuy133 said:
BluRays have to be the slowest growing and adapting tech i have ever seen. We still only have like 50GB disks and they are really really expensive. I found BluRay to be a major let down in terms of capacity and pricing given how long it has been out.
Click to expand...
 
Olga-SAN said:
agree

in terms of backup its much cheaper to get extra nas or two with a high capacity satas in a mirror

also blurays are not really usable for data vaulting
Click to expand...
they were originally hailed as a solid option especially for consumer
 
Black5Lion said:
One more thing, Bigdady92 please steer clear from Seagate drives, I'm speaking from experience here. really really bad experience.
Click to expand...

The jury is out right now on the SMR disks. They are big, they are slow, they are meant for long term storage like AWS Glacier. Write once, read only if you gotta get something off of it.

I plan on getting several and putting them in a NAS as a backup to my current SAN system. Nightly backups on those disks at the pricepoint accomplish all I will ever need.
 
Announced in Q1/2016 with the first 300GB "Freeze Ray" aka "Archival Disc" standard discs for commercial data storage installations. Apparently Facebook is one of the first test and/or production customers:

freeze-ray: Optical Disc-Based Data Archive System | Panasonic

Let's hope it catches on and prices come down. I'm still using 50GB BD-R DL discs for some important back ups that I hope will be still usable in 20 years to come. Until I have 10Gbit/s up/down Internet connection at full speed and at a decent price no amount of cloud storage is going to make me switch over to cloud.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top