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Back-Up Method: DVD/Blu-Rays vs. External HDDs

S

SolidSnakeUS

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,282
Which do you think I should be going with in this day and age. I do have a lot I want to burn off, but as of right now, DVDs are getting to be a hassle and very time consuming. Do you think I should get myself some 1TB externals and back up that way? I have about 5 DVD folders full and at least anywhere between 1TB and 2TB worth of DVDs. Should I just spend the extra money to get myself some 1, 2 or 3 TB hard drives? Also, what lasts longer? Such as if I were to just fill up a drive and put it in a safe place, will it last longer than DVD/Blu-Ray media?
 
The problem is, everyone is saying something different. I will also mention when some people want some of what's on my DVDs, I would have to drag ALL of my binders to these places and it's heavy as all hell. That is why I was maybe thinking of filling up hard drives and then just putting them somewhere safe, where they wouldn't have to be used or touched until they are needed.
 
I think hard drives would be fine in your case. Just make sure you make at least 2 copies of everything you want to keep to minimize the chance of loss when a hard drive dies. Notice I said when a hard drive dies and not if. Plan for a drive dieing.
 
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SolidSnakeUS said:
The problem is, everyone is saying something different. I will also mention when some people want some of what's on my DVDs, I would have to drag ALL of my binders to these places and it's heavy as all hell. That is why I was maybe thinking of filling up hard drives and then just putting them somewhere safe, where they wouldn't have to be used or touched until they are needed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just keep the most important data on the DVDs. Everything else can stay on two or more HDDs, and I agree with the idea of duplicates in case of failure.

External 1TB HDDs are very affordable now with some being below $100, so for sub $200, you can backup all of your data.

If you go any cheaper however, you get what you pay for.
 
Red Falcon said:
Yeah, just keep the most important data on the DVDs. Everything else can stay on two or more HDDs, and I agree with the idea of duplicates in case of failure.

External 1TB HDDs are very affordable now with some being below $100, so for sub $200, you can backup all of your data.

If you go any cheaper however, you get what you pay for.
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I mean, I have so many goddamn DVDs and most of it is anime and also other things and I do keep a list of all the anime on an excel file of mine so I like to make sure I still have what I am said to have on the list. Funny, I have been without redundancy for SO long. You can see my hard drives in my computer in my signature, but seriously, I have no actual back ups of this system. I just would like to clean up my system by moving some things that are either done or I'm not going to use anymore, but would like to keep. Sadly, not having a job is a pain and I would still like to have a USB 3.0 drives, but all I have right now is a eSATA port and no eSATA externals haha.
 
So? Why do you need USB 3.0? Just get an external with 2.0 or 3.0 and use it in a 2.0 slot. Sure you might have to wait a bit for the transfers to finish, but after you're done, that's it.

What is your budget?
 
I have a lot to use (or enough I think), but since I don't have a job any more (still living at home though) it's still kind of a problem. Mainly because I do also still want to upgrade my mouse, case and keyboard sometime in the near future. So money is kind of a problem right now.

But yeah, I say 3.0 because of speed.
 
Sounds like you are on a budget, so getting a 3.0 drive might cost a bit more, depending on where it is being sold, though I think 2.0 drives are being phased out.

Just get whatever you can afford then. WD Passports are very good.
 
Red Falcon said:
Sounds like you are on a budget, so getting a 3.0 drive might cost a bit more, depending on where it is being sold, though I think 2.0 drives are being phased out.

Just get whatever you can afford then. WD Passports are very good.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of just filling up a 1TB Passport with stuff, since it's small and has USB 2/3 support and just putting it somewhere when I'm done. I'd like to do that with at least 3 hard drives. I know people say redundancy... but money isn't my forte right now.
 
You needed to state that in your OP.
You never did say exactly what your budget was, but assuming since you are out of work, it won't be much.

Just do what you gotta do then.
I guess there's a reason you're using DVDs to back everything up. :p
 
Red Falcon said:
You needed to state that in your OP.
You never did say exactly what your budget was, but assuming since you are out of work, it won't be much.

Just do what you gotta do then.
I guess there's a reason you're using DVDs to back everything up. :p
Click to expand...

I've also been using DVDs as a back up for about 8 years now lol.
 
SolidSnakeUS said:
I've also been using DVDs as a back up for about 8 years now lol.
Click to expand...

You know I cry for you ;(

I would never use DVD or Blu-Ray for backup in this day and age unless it was just a few gigabytes of data.

1) From what I can tell, you have several TBs of data. That means you're going to have to sit in front of your machine burning discs for a very long time, especially when you consider that you'll want to make multiple backups as well as verify the data.

2) Optical media degrades over time, so you'll want to test your backups from time to time, and you probably don't want to deal with verifying every disc.

3) If you have to restore your backups, you'll again be in front of your machine copying and changing out disc after disc after disc after disc......

To sum it, it would get very tedious. A 2TB external HD can be had from Amazon for $90 with free shipping, and it would be a one time copy and paste. The transfer would take a long time, but once it's done, it's done. A restore would also be a lot easier if needed.
 
The 2TB could probably take up most of the DVDs I have. I just did the math. If I take 5 binders of 128 discs (all SL DVDs) and do the math, it comes out to just under 3TBs of data. A 3TB WD External is 120 on Amazon. But the question is, how reliable are the current 3TBs? As of right now, I HAVE A TON of time on my hands (outside of video games and my one night class) to copy some stuff over onto an external. How about this, do you think I should keep all my DVDs that I've burned but copy all the data from them onto the 3TB and just use the 3TB as my carry-around if I take it with me?
 
What about online backup like crashplan or backblaze?

I recently decided I really should have all my data backed up and I have about 6-8TB to backup so I found out the cheapest solution for me would be crashplan.

It's $32 per year for unlimited storage. 6TB right now would cost around $250 for hard drives but that's 7.8 years worth of crashplan time in cost. Plus crashplan will let me store all my data as it grows larger and larger.
 
SirMaster said:
What about online backup like crashplan or backblaze?

I recently decided I really should have all my data backed up and I have about 6-8TB to backup so I found out the cheapest solution for me would be crashplan.

It's $32 per year for unlimited storage. 6TB right now would cost around $250 for hard drives but that's 7.8 years worth of crashplan time in cost. Plus crashplan will let me store all my data as it grows larger and larger.
Click to expand...

How do you plan on uploading 6TB to crashplan, do you have a fast enough internet connection. I use crashplan and I did my first back up from my office, 80G took about 36 hours.

You can use the seeding service but that costs more than just buying drives.
 
SirMaster said:
What about online backup like crashplan or backblaze?

I recently decided I really should have all my data backed up and I have about 6-8TB to backup so I found out the cheapest solution for me would be crashplan.

It's $32 per year for unlimited storage. 6TB right now would cost around $250 for hard drives but that's 7.8 years worth of crashplan time in cost. Plus crashplan will let me store all my data as it grows larger and larger.
Click to expand...

The question is... are they sensitive with what kind of data you send it? I mean... I'll put it this way, if I didn't want cops to show up, are they all about privacy?

Also, I read a bit, does Crashplan NOT have a search function? Also, I think the idea for hard drives (for me at least) is that I do like to share. Also, wouldn't Crashplan have a fun time conflicting with the idea of limited bandwidth on a line? Comcast has 250GB a month, and considering how much shit I have... it may be a while (and I'm at home, so I don't pay for cable). What would happen if Crashplan lost all of my data? Or is that VERY unlikely? Also 6TB of online connection would take WAY, WAY too long to be honest.

And from the guy above, using that time per gig, it came out to 115 days to upload 6TB of straight connection usage.

I pretty much did the math, I could spend $200 on a 3TB external and 2TB external and basically be able to back up almost all my DVDs and then the 2TB can back up anything that comes directly from my computer.
 
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Well, I have 5 Mbit upload which is pretty average so it's not that bad for the initial seed. I've been uploading for 2 months so far and I have 3TB done so 2 more months to go and all my data will be uploaded. I don't think keeping up with file changes will be that hard as I can upload nearly 50GB per day.

As far as privacy goes, the data is encrypted on the client side so nobody can know what any of the files are.

If they lost my data, which is highly highly unlikely (they are a backup service after all and provide backups for enterprise as well) then I would have just lost my backup. I still have my primary copy in which I would precede to backup to a new location.

For the 2 months I've had the service it's been nothing but great for me and I really like that I now have the ability to go to a friends house and download a file from the crashplan servers at my friends max download speed (like a movie or something).

I just have the crashplan service running on my headless Synology NAS and it just uploads 24/7.
 
s0rce said:
How do you plan on uploading 6TB to crashplan, do you have a fast enough internet connection. I use crashplan and I did my first back up from my office, 80G took about 36 hours.

You can use the seeding service but that costs more than just buying drives.
Click to expand...

+1
Without at 25/25 or beyond connection, backing up 6TB would take an eternity.
Outside of medium/large businesses, this isn't really a realistic option for most users.

Even at 1MB/s (8Mbps) upload speed, it would take forever to backup that much data.


It took him 3 months to backup 3TB of data... and the OP was disliking USB 2.0 for it's slow transfer speeds...
 
Red Falcon said:
+1
Without at 25/25 or beyond connection, backing up 6TB would take an eternity.
Outside of medium/large businesses, this isn't really a realistic option for most users.

Even at 1MB/s (8Mbps) upload speed, it would take forever to backup that much data.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with your definition of forever lol.

As I stated earlier, I only have 5 megabit and it only takes 4 months to do my initial 6TB seed. I don't consider 4 months to be all that long and certainly not forever lol.

Now, over a year to do the seed would be too long IMO, but a few months didn't seem like that long before I purchased my account and still doesn't seem that long after i'm half way done already.

2 Months are already over and over 3TB are done and it went by so fast for me whats another 2 months. Things go by fast when they are out of sight out of mind IMO. I just started the backup process and let it do it's thing day in and day out.

I guess I look at it this way. My data hasn't been backed up for 5+ years so what's another 4 months. Once you are done with the initial seed then you are done. It's just incremental from there. And even with only 1 megabit upload you could keep up with an average of just over 10GB a day in file changes which should be enough for most people.

But yes I never said it's for everyone. At least I didn't intend it to come across that way. But it seems like a good option for some like me. And i was just sharing what iv'e done already and how I liked it with positive feedback from my own experience.
 
Red Falcon said:
+1
Without at 25/25 or beyond connection, backing up 6TB would take an eternity.
Outside of medium/large businesses, this isn't really a realistic option for most users.

Even at 1MB/s (8Mbps) upload speed, it would take forever to backup that much data.


It took him 3 months to backup 3TB of data... and the OP was disliking USB 2.0 for it's slow transfer speeds...
Click to expand...

Which is why I'm looking at a minimum of USB 3.0 (I don't have) or eSATA (which I do have) by either the way of an actual external HDD, or an internal drive using a toaster or a hotswap bay for my computer.
 
Oh come on, you don't want to have a backup take 6+ months to complete? :p
 
Convert all of the movies. 1 DVD movie converted for me is about 800-900MB in MP4. 1 DVD iso 5-7 GB.

Keep 2 copies of the MP4 on two different drives. You also have the original DVD files so now you will have 3 copies.
 
Honestly, losing movies isn't a huge loss for me as it would be a huge loss if I lost all my anime (much more time put into it and harder to get back).
 
Just get a few hard drives and be done with it. I just picked up a 1.5 TB drive for $42 from newegg along with an external enclosure for the same purpose. If your computer supports it I would just got for eSATA and not worry about USB 3.0.
 
andwhite143 said:
I preffer blue ray disc , because its cheap compare to HDD, we can buy more BR discs ..

edited out crap links, damn spammers
Click to expand...

Blue-Ray takes forever to burn. Again, this isn't much of an upgrade path to DVDs.
Only the most critical data should be burned to optical media, and only if necessary.

As for the whole "Blue-Rays won't break down like CD/DVDs because they don't use organic material", all I have to say is this:
I have CDs and DVDs since the late 90's and early 2000's that still work after storage and/or heavy usage to this day.
Any media being stored beyond 10 years, in any case, regardless of the medium, should be transferred to a new medium.
As for Blue-Rays lasting 10+ years, that has yet to be seen as Blue-Ray discs and drives have not even been around that long, so it has yet to fully be proven.
CDs and DVDs have been, and if stored properly, they will last.

SolidSnakeUS, that enclosure looks good but after you buy it and the HDD, you will have paid for more than a simple WD Passport Elite USB 3.0 drive would have cost.

If you really need it, go for it. Otherwise, save your money and go with a Passport, much less headache and overhead.

If you are worried about speed, a desktop-class HDD won't be any faster than a portable-class HDD with USB 2.0/3.0.
 
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Red Falcon said:
Blue-Ray takes forever to burn. Again, this isn't much of an upgrade path to DVDs.
Only the most critical data should be burned to optical media, and only if necessary.

SolidSnakeUS, that enclosure looks good but after you buy it and the HDD, you will have paid for more than a simple WD Passport Elite USB 3.0 drive would have cost.

If you really need it, go for it. Otherwise, save your money and go with a Passport, much less headache and overhead.

If you are worried about speed, a desktop-class HDD won't be any faster than a portable-class HDD with USB 2.0/3.0.
Click to expand...

Also, don't click on his links.
 
SolidSnakeUS said:
Also, don't click on his links.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I just reported him.
Those links are crap just by looking at them and he only has three posts with those links in all of them.

Total spammer if you ask me.

btw, check out my revised post on DVDs. ;)
 
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Red Falcon said:
Thanks, I just reported him.
Those links are crap just by looking at them and he only has three posts with those links in all of them.

Total spammer if you ask my.

btw, check out my revised post on DVDs. ;)
Click to expand...

I actually tried to use Blu-Rays (I still have some blank ones), but the drive I had would eventually just COMPLETELY lock up, keep spinning until I opened it manually, then it would never open again with the button, and if I were to reset, instead of shut down and then turn on, it would actually lock up at post because there is some short of what happened. The first one I had couldn't burn a Blu-Ray. The next one burned 3 before it died. Then the next one burned 9 then died again. So yeah...
 
Wow, that's pretty bad luck.
I don't think backing to Blu-Ray is horrible, but like DVDs, the data must be minimal and a necessity.
In every other case I can think of this day and age, HDDs are the way to go.
 
Red Falcon said:
Wow, that's pretty bad luck.
I don't think backing to Blu-Ray is horrible, but like DVDs, the data must be minimal and a necessity.
In every other case I can think of this day and age, HDDs are the way to go.
Click to expand...

Give me a combo from Newegg (a combination of the products you think) that would be the best for the money.
 
2 externals that each have a copy of everything would be much better than a raid 5 system especially a cheap raid 5 system.
 
Need to clear up some stuff here.

1. All media degrades..some fater than others. The laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated in this known universe.

2. CD R/W is not archive rated. Current data shows ~5 years w/ how the average joe does discs. It is possible to go well beyond this by buying discs from major vendors designed for archiving and burning at the lowest speed possible (testing has shown this is a good thing).

3. DVD R/W is not archive rated (~10 years) but DVD-RAM in a cartridge I believe still is. It is possible to go well beyond this by buying discs from major vendors designed for archiving and burning at the lowest speed possible (testing has shown this is a good thing).

Simple summary..don't buy the cheapest discs you see on the day after thanksgiving and don't burn at max speed to reduce risk.

4. Blu-Ray is archive rated I believe for 25 years. Blu-Ray does have specific discs that are designed to maximize life. Secondarily, blu-ray does a bit more effort in terms of repeating certain data (tables, indexes) on the disc to maximize data recovery even on a degraded disc.

5. HDD's are not archive rated and the most prone to failure even if unpowered. However, they do provide very high density, are low cost, and simple to work with. Strong cases are being made that having data on 3 or more HDD's, in seperate locations, that are replaced on a regular basis (at least every 5 years) are more cost effective and just as statiscially robust as tape.

6. Tape will last longer than all and proven as such.

------------

My backup plan is fairly simple but robust right now.

1. All machines backup to WHS (auto magic)
2. All data on WHS is duplicated (auto magic)
3. All data on WHS is also copied to another machine (poor mans server backup, syncback)
4. Critical data is in the cloud (crashplan)
5. Critical data is also burnt to a blu-ray once every 3 months and stored at my bank.

The only part that is manual in my whole process is me making a blu-ray disc and taking it to the bank. Everything else is automated.
 
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Instead of an enclosure, you could get a dock, with USB and eSATA. Then you can buy several internal drives as needed and as money is available. For transport, you can get a cheap plastic enclosure to put the bare drive in.
 
Trepidati0n said:
5. HDD's are not archive rated and the most prone to failure even if unpowered. However, they do provide very high density, are low cost, and simple to work with. Strong cases are being made that having data on 3 or more HDD's, in seperate locations, that are replaced on a regular basis (at least every 5 years) are more cost effective and just as statiscially robust as tape.
Click to expand...

One advantage of HDD is that, with the right OS and software (e.g. FlexRAID, ZFS, BTRFS etc), you can set them up to periodically scrub for and correct errors due to "bit rot". The downside is the drives need to be online to do this, or at least you need them in a machine that will wake itself up from time to time to do the scrub.
 
Metaluna said:
One advantage of HDD is that, with the right OS and software (e.g. FlexRAID, ZFS, BTRFS etc), you can set them up to periodically scrub for and correct errors due to "bit rot". The downside is the drives need to be online to do this, or at least you need them in a machine that will wake itself up from time to time to do the scrub.
Click to expand...

So you'd basically have to turn off the system, put the drive in the hotswap bay, and then turn the computer back on and would scrub away the errors?
 
So you'd basically have to turn off the system, put the drive in the hotswap bay, and then turn the computer back on and would scrub away the errors?
Click to expand...

Depending on the OS a user would probably need to just hot swap the drive in and issue a command to start scrubbing. Or setup the system to do this automatically.

However you will most likely not be using any of the filesystems (or operating systems) that support this scrubbing especially with only 2 hard drives, your budget and desire for simplicity.
 
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