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are DVDs useless?

G

Gomar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
315
It would seem that with prices of external HDDs dropping, and capacity increasing, there is no longer use for DVDs. A portable 500gb HDD goes for $79. That's one light weight item instead of 100 DVDs.
However, comparing costs:
1cd-r 700mb(0.7gb) - 0.11c each
1DVD 4.37gb - 0.20c each
100 DVDs(437gb) - $20 [0.04c - 1gb]
100 CD-Rs(70gb) - $11 [0.16c - 1gb]

So, in the long run, you do get more storage far cheaper from DVDs (4 times less).
However, you need to swap them alot if backing up a hdd, + jewel cases add to cost,
+storage, + risk of scratches or damage, +wear out of drive.
Also, you cant play DVDs in cd players or in the car, and my DVD player does not play jpgs nor mp3s.
 
Well, everything has its place depending on the need. If you are sending out portfolios, samples or installer media etc it is cheaper to send out a .20 disc than a $79 drive. It is also better than sending out a thumb drive when a customer calls you on a Sunday needing a new installer because he reused the USB key you sent him as an installer.
 
I used DVDs for storage for a while. But as soon as hard drives dropped close enough in price, 3 or 4 years ago, I stopped using DVDs, and now I don't even have a DVD reader (nor CD, nor BR) on my main computer.

You talk about 500GB 2,5" drives, and with current high prices caused by the floods, but two months ago you had 3TB 3,5" drives around the 110$ mark. That makes 0,04c/GB too. And is far more practical, as long as you connect to it in some way, of course.

I dread burning a disc, so burning that many discs would be out of the question, anyway. And the HDD is rewritable, of course.
 
You can use DVD's as a snapshot of your "important" data + if a DVD "fails" then you can usually recover at least some of your data. On the other hand DVD's tend to degrade over time (pretty sure I read some sort of study on that a few years ago) so I wouldn't rely on them when it comes to archiving data.
 
I wouldn't say they're useless, but they're certainly not as useful as they used to be. Between being able to install Windows from a USB drive, and being able to use daemon tools to load images, you really don't need an optical drive anymore
 
Yep, done with DVDs here too for over 2 years. The key is to buy a bigger and cheaper drive every 2 years or so to keep up with the increase in size of your data and archives and get rid of your smaller drives before they become obsolete. It also takes care of bit decay. Your older drives make nice Christmas presents, especially if filled with music and movies!
I use backblaze backup service too, nice if you travel and need access to your data from anywhere even if your computer got stolen. But it's not for archiving, only mirroring.
 
Not as viable for data storage as the used to be, but certainly still useful for other things. Movie and game backups are certainly the #1 use at the moment in my house.
 
Yeah I basically stopped using them as soon as I could get LT03 (400GB) tapes for under $20 each new. That's about $.05 a gig, alot faster than DVD-R and like 80x the space. And alot more reliable (and now cheaper) than hard drives.
 
I exchanged the DVD burner in my laptop with a 1TB HDD in a caddy since I rarely use optical discs and just put the burner in external case.

So far no trouble with my Samsung Spinpoint M8 for $120 shipped. $0.12/GB :)
 
dustNbone said:
(400GB) tapes for under $20 each new. That's about $.05 a gig,
Click to expand...

I agree on DVDs. I too was looking into tapes for their low cost;however, cost of the drive has to be considered. Plus, DVD drives come with all PCs, so they are useable anywhere. Also, data on DVDs could not be accidentally deleted, magnetized, or changed;unlike hdd, USB drives, SD cards, tapes.
At this time, DVDs are best value, but I hope bluray price of 50gb drops and drives come standard on new PCs.
 
At this time, DVDs are best value,
Click to expand...

That depends on how much you need to backup. A few GB yes. A TB maybe. 10s of TBs no way.

DVDs could not be accidentally deleted, magnetized, or changed;unlike hdd, USB drives, SD cards, tapes.
Click to expand...

DVDs can be destroyed by heat. Also they degrade over time. With any media you should keep at least 2 copies this is especially true with dvds. Depending on how much data you have this can get very time consuming with DVDs when your data set grows to need a few thousand of them and 2 copies of this since its highly likely that when you go to restore a few thousand DVDs that one of them will be unreadable or have lost data. Not to mention keeping a few thousand of them safe.
 
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you make a really good point. I almost never use dvd's anymore except for longer term backup. And because of their now relatively tiny size, even that's becoming useless anymore. I can't backup a virtual machine that takes up 120gigs to a gazillion dvd's. I've gone almost exclusively to hdd's for backup.
 
I have a spindle of CDs and DVDs that I bought when I was in college. I since finished, moved to my house and have been living here for about 3 years and still have them in a drawer. I occasionally use one but I'm still on the same spindles. TBH 80% of the time I use one it's because somebody else wants me to burn something for them.

Because of the price of hard drives, and the fact that I have a decent server with a decent raid array and decent backups, I just keep everything on spinning disks. For 1 time file transfers I've never used optical media as I always found it wasteful to the environment, so I use the internet, or a USB stick.

Back in the day I use to perform an archive of my data like code and such to CD/DVDs and it just kinda stopped. Also, I kept it for setup files so reinstalling a program is made easy, or if the program stops being available online etc I still have it on hand. But now all that stuff goes to my server and is all nicely organized.

I rarely watch movies off discs. I rather watch them through my HTPC from file, which again, is are all stored on my server. Pretty much everything is on my server, available at all times.
 
TBO, I have my HP recovery DVDs only because I didn't have a large enough flash drive. I'm currently looking for a way to transfer those recovery DVDs to a flash drive since HP only allow one set to be made.
 
ninjaturtle said:
TBO, I have my HP recovery DVDs only because I didn't have a large enough flash drive. I'm currently looking for a way to transfer those recovery DVDs to a flash drive since HP only allow one set to be made.
Click to expand...

There are ways to bypass that.
 
So the best solution to storage are external HDDs. Fine. Thus, no need for a large internal hdd on pc or laptop; all files should be stored on external hdd right away.
I might as well get a pc with just 120gb, and an external hdd with 1tb. in case of fire or flood, I run off with the ext.hdd and leave the pc to burn. Or, I could get a laptop with 500gb. or, ifcourse, use an online storage site.
 
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