8x DVD burner

patch29

I finally broke down today and bought a new DVD writer. My old one was 1x and it was taking way too long to get through all my work.

At 8x I burned 4.4 GB in eight minutes. :clap That is a huge improvement. $240 for the drive and it came with the full version of Toast 6. :thumb At least I can backup my data in a decent amount of time now.

philspace

patch29 wrote:

I finally broke down today and bought a new DVD writer. My old one was 1x and it was taking way too long to get through all my work.

At 8x I burned 4.4 GB in eight minutes. That is a huge improvement. $240 for the drive and it came with the full version of Toast 6. At least I can backup my data in a decent amount of time now.

Me too - just picked up a Sony dual layer burner - damn .crw files do take up some space - now backups should be simple, especially with 8+GB per disk. Now to wait for the price of the dual layer media to come down :cry

patch29

philspace wrote:

Me too - just picked up a Sony dual layer burner - damn .crw files do take up some space - now backups should be simple, especially with 8+GB per disk. Now to wait for the price of the dual layer media to come down :cry

I thought about ordering a dual layer, but I was not sure of it yet, and then there is the disk price. I figure this one will last me a while and I can upgrade when dual layer becomes widely used. Most jobs for me come in about 12GB it would be nice to get all of that on one disk, someday it will but the cameras will probably shoot much larger files by then.

pathfinder

patch29 wrote:

I finally broke down today and bought a new DVD writer. My old one was 1x and it was taking way too long to get through all my work.

At 8x I burned 4.4 GB in eight minutes. That is a huge improvement. $240 for the drive and it came with the full version of Toast 6. At least I can backup my data in a decent amount of time now.

Patch - Do you have much faith in DVDs for data( digital file) storage ( not video or music ) compared to CD-Rs? I am sure you have heard of the difficulties people have experienced with data retrieval from CD-Rs after several years of storage. Some reviewers are even more concerned with DVDs, than they are with CD-Rs.

I am currently using CD-Rs and a DVD for duplicate storage of image files, bu it is tedious and cumbersome, even with an 8x DVD. I also use dual hard drives as well - but have only been storing digital images seriously for a year or two. I wonder what our experience will be in 20 years or so. Any thoughts about the reliability of long term digital storage and retrieval?

Just finding an image as a data file after 20 years sounds like it may be challenging. I know the pros all use fancy image database programs, but if you shoot many frames,it almost becomes a full time job just for labelling and storing.

dkapp

pathfinder wrote:

Patch - Do you have much faith in DVDs for data( digital file) storage ( not video or music ) compared to CD-Rs? I am sure you have heard of the difficulties people have experienced with data retrieval from CD-Rs after several years of storage. Some reviewers are even more concerned with DVDs, than they are with CD-Rs.

I am currently using CD-Rs and a DVD for duplicate storage of image files, bu it is tedious and cumbersome, even with an 8x DVD. I also use dual hard drives as well - but have only been storing digital images seriously for a year or two. I wonder what our experience will be in 20 years or so. Any thoughts about the reliability of long term digital storage and retrieval?

Just finding an image as a data file after 20 years sounds like it may be challenging. I know the pros all use fancy image database programs, but if you shoot many frames,it almost becomes a full time job just for labelling and storing.

I read all the news about the life of cd-r's not being anywhere close to what everyone had originally thought. I also remember reading that DVD's will last longer because of the way they are made and written, but I could be very wrong.

I just bought a new laptop two weeks ago, and I made sure I had a cd/dvd burner for backups. Right now I archive everything to an external drive & dvd. With the price of external drives becoming so cheap, a dual solution like this may be your best bet.

Dave

philspace

You really don't need to worry about holding images for 20 years. They do make magneto optical drives and media that are certified for extended periods for long term record storage, but the bottom line is that technology is changing so rapidly that no one will be using a CD reader in 20 years. The only reason I bought the dual layer DVD-ROM is to try to stay ahead of the techno curve - I am counting on the price of the disks to drop. I am also sure that in 3+ years it will probably be obsolete and I will have moved on to the next great new storage medium :cry

Bottom line, if you buy good media with stable dyes and keep the burned disks stored properly vendors (Hispace, Imation and others) are quoting numbers up to 75 and 100 years - the cheap shit might go for 10.

Given that magnetic disks (zip drives etc.) will only get you 1-5 years, hard drives that last past 6 years are truly rare, most tapes are only certified for 10-20 years (after you write on them once!), optical disk (CD, DVD, Worm etc.) and static ram media are your only choices and static ram (generally good for 50-100 years) is awful pricey for imagery.

It sounds like you really need an archiving routine/database application to allow you to manage your imagery.

patch29

pathfinder wrote:

Patch - Do you have much faith in DVDs for data( digital file) storage ( not video or music ) compared to CD-Rs? I am sure you have heard of the difficulties people have experienced with data retrieval from CD-Rs after several years of storage. Some reviewers are even more concerned with DVDs, than they are with CD-Rs.

I am currently using CD-Rs and a DVD for duplicate storage of image files, bu it is tedious and cumbersome, even with an 8x DVD. I also use dual hard drives as well - but have only been storing digital images seriously for a year or two. I wonder what our experience will be in 20 years or so. Any thoughts about the reliability of long term digital storage and retrieval?

Just finding an image as a data file after 20 years sounds like it may be challenging. I know the pros all use fancy image database programs, but if you shoot many frames,it almost becomes a full time job just for labelling and storing.

It is a concern. I try to burn two copies to two different manufacturers DVDs, hoping at least one will be readable. I do not write on the disks, some are stored in the plastic cases they came in, other in Tyvek sleeves. I hope they will last, but I do not have the time to write that many CD-R's. I tend to keep a copy on an external HD as long as possible. When I have converted my RAW files I will typically make a master low compression set of jpg's. Those I master to Mitsu Gold CD-R's. I figure once I have that it is usually my go to file. Hopefully with images over three different types of storage media I will be able to access them easily in the future. The disks are also stored in the dark.

Keeping up with the images is a little bit of a hassle. Most of my work is job/client driven so my disks are marked as such and I typically title it with the date so if I lose the info sheet on it I can figure out what it is quickly. I am also trying to keep up with the disk titles and contents in a spreadsheet so I can sort through them quickly. It is a definite work in progress. I also catalog some of the jobs in iview, but it is a pain with multiple disks and copies. To date I can still locate work quickly. The day I dread is when and if DVD/CD technology is on the way out. It will be a lot of transferring of old media to new media, not a fun task.

PerezDesignGroup

I love my Pioneer A107 8X DVD Burner. I paid $89 for it at Newegg. Now it's $84 :cry.

I personally have full faith in DVD's. The data layer is sandwiched between 2 chunky plastic layers. CD's aren't built this way. The top side (where you write) is also the data layer and any damage at that level will result in non-playability. As you may have noticed, it's easy to damage the top layer on CD's.

I should mention I do not have faith in cheapy DVD media and if you want consistent but well priced quality, stick to Taiyo Yuden and Ritek. I also make sure I verify the final burn with Nero's "Verify Disk Data" feature everyy time I burn. And one last tip. Avoid burning a full 4.4gb DVD. Try to stick to 4.1 or 4.2gb. This is because most of the problems in the DVD media's manufacturing process affect the very end of the disc. This causes sometimes unplayable media on those sectors and choppy/frozen video quality. I write this from experience.

If anyone here ever decides to buy one, check out this site for reviews and real feedback.

mercphoto

Longevity

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

I personally have full faith in DVD's. The data layer is sandwiched between 2 chunky plastic layers. CD's aren't built this way. The top side (where you write) is also the data layer and any damage at that level will result in non-playability. As you may have noticed, it's easy to damage the top layer on CD's.

Seeing as how the top layer of a CD is its vulnerable side, are those printable CD's better? I would think so, since the surface isn't actually touched by anything, ink is sprayed onto it. Seems better than writing with a pen. And I am assuming the inks used are safe for the plastic as well.

About the only thing that is long-term safe for archival is something optical, and by that I mean a negative or a print. In the digital realm you not only have to worry about how long the CD-R, DVD or hard disk will last, but also how long that file format will continue to be used. What if Canon/Nikon/etc. change their raw formats? What if something replaces JPG? What if the file system itself changes with Mac OS-20 or Windows 2023? These are all very possible.

PerezDesignGroup

mercphoto wrote:

Seeing as how the top layer of a CD is its vulnerable side, are those printable CD's better?

From a logical perspective they should be better. Anything that doesn't expose the shiny silver surface is superior. And I don't think Inkjet inks could ever really cause any harm. One thing that presents a problem are the CD Label stickers. I use them on DVD's but never CD's of any type. Some people suggest the adhesives deteriorate the data after a while. I'd rather not find out . I'd rather use a plain old Sharpie.

mercphoto wrote:

About the only thing that is long-term safe for archival is something optical, and by that I mean a negative or a print....but also how long that file format will continue to be used...

Extremely possible and valid points. Especially with all the hype behind JPEG2000.

philspace

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

From a logical perspective they should be better. Anything that doesn't expose the shiny silver surface is superior. And I don't think Inkjet inks could ever really cause any harm. One thing that presents a problem are the CD Label stickers. I use them on DVD's but never CD's of any type. Some people suggest the adhesives deteriorate the data after a while. I'd rather not find out . I'd rather use a plain old Sharpie.


Extremely possible and valid points. Especially with all the hype behind JPEG2000.

Stickers are bad! I will never use them again after having the heat of the player in my car (winter time) cause the adhevise/label to let go inside the player and destroy the 6 CD changer. One of my DVD players also has a completely internal drive (no moving tray) and carries a warning on it that says not to use adhesive labels. I was lucky on the car, there was a warning in the manual that was pointed out by the dealer, but they looked the other way and replaced it under warranty.