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Blue Ray Disks
Sam
Registered Users Posts: 7,419 Major grins
In my continuing quest for information leading to my next generation computer system I am trying to research the Blue Ray disks. To that end I can't find, (I have looked!), information about the manufacturer.
Are they on this planet? If yes, are they in the USA? Are they far enough along in their development to have the new modern voice communications system? If so what the heck is their phone number.
Looking into methods of archiving data for extended periods of time. If the prints will now last 100 years why not the original files?
I have been told DVD's are only good for 5 to 10 years. I would like something more substaintial.
Sam
Are they on this planet? If yes, are they in the USA? Are they far enough along in their development to have the new modern voice communications system? If so what the heck is their phone number.
Looking into methods of archiving data for extended periods of time. If the prints will now last 100 years why not the original files?
I have been told DVD's are only good for 5 to 10 years. I would like something more substaintial.
Sam
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I am biased a bit as BLU RAY is still fairly new.....Blue Ray refers to the color of the laser that reads and writes on the disk.........WIKI DEF HERE...........my quik GOOGLE EFFORTS HERE..............now my prob with blu ray is ....... is it a dye in there to write to or what......I still feel that the MAM-A GOLD (which is actually real gold foil) is still the best and single layer mediums at least for me hold enuff files (4.7gb) that if I start loosing them could be catastrophic to say the least but with dual layer and disks offering different types of compression to get more and more data on the same size disk is scary......at least with a hdd I can send it off to be recovered it is very pricy (at ~$25/mb) but it can be recovered............I have yet to find a company that say they can recover all data from a dead cd/dvd disk
here is something intersting on BLU RAY.....HOW STUFF WORKS..........
Having had experience with the fall out rate of CD's when working at Wichita State U ..... As I said I am biased to only recommending MAM-A (Mitsui Gold) Gold cd/dvd disks...........
latest published results for cd/dvd longevity:
New Lifetime Test results:
Expected Lifetime:
MAM-A Gold Archive CD-R: 329 years
MAM-A Gold Archive DVD-R: 116 years
Longest lifetime of any optical media.
Mam-A (Mitsui) is the worlds leading Mfg'er of reordable disk meadia.
Personally, my approach is to have a live archive by which I mean I make a new copy every few years. I haven't found any way I can put my data on a shelf for 20 years and feel completely confident it will still be legible after that time. For that I use hard drives rather than optical media because copying 200 DVD-Rs is too time consuming.
Agreed. And it's very likely that a generic computer 20 years from now will not have optical drives, at least as we know them. May not even have hard drives, for that matter.
It seems that the 'live archive' approach is the most maintainable.
I will call the Mam-A people and see what they have to say. The Blu Ray looks pretty good at 25 gig, and 50 gig each, but I couldn't, can't find a phone number for the company, so no info no option.
I think if the Mam-A Gold DVD's last half as long as the claim I will be in good shape.
Sam
BluRay isn't a company. It was developed by a variety of companies (most conspicuously Sony) as part of the Blu-ray Disc Association.
I'm not sure what kind of information you are trying to gather by calling them.
Are you looking for vendors of blank media?
http://www.shop4tech.com/item5645.html
Are you looking for hardware to write BluRay?
http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/search.asp?s=bluray
Are you looking for general information?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_ray
Thanks for your response.
I am just looking for a lot of general info. Do you need a special writer? (I would think so). Do you need a special reader? (That would limit the use ) What is the stated life span, and how was this determined?
What are the costs. Would this be a viable method to achieve all my photos.
I try VERY VERY hard to only do business with a company that has a phone, and someone to answer it.
If a company can't aford a phone, I'll just wait until they have enough business to afford one.
Sam
Blu Ray is just the next generation of DVD. HD for movies, high capacity storage for PCs. No big deal. Plenty of laptops and desktops with Blu Ray drives as an option. If you need it, then get it should not be any more complicated that a DVD. the media is about $15 EACH for a disk at the moment, but it will come down over time...DVD was about the same back in the day.
Here is a search on Newegg for drives, media and even PCs with BluRay:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=bluray&x=0&y=0
Just deal with NewEgg if you are building a PC, for example there is a Panasonic drive for a few hundred. Or if you are buying a PC, Dell, HP etc will add one to your PC for a bit more.
Is it worth it? To me, no it is not worth it today. At $15 each, I can buy 50 DVDs. Granted, one BluRay disc is basically 10 DVDs, I am not willing to be on the bleeding edge in terms of long term storage. Right now, my bulk storage of choice is simply external USB harddrives. They are cheap ($100 or less for ~200GB), compatible and portable.
Yes, you need a special writer and reader. Writers are fairly expensive (on par with the original 1X CD-R drives), and the media is extremely expensive (like the original dual layer DVD-RW).
I'm not sure what the estimated life of the discs are, and I'd personally be pretty suspicious of any claims.
In my opinion, while it's a viable solution, it isn't a good one. For one, compare the cost of a 1TB external harddrive to the cost of twenty BluRay discs. Then, when the next technology comes along and you want to keep up, you have to go transfer data from a bunch of different sources. That would certainly be annoying. I'd much prefer one or two hard drives to 20 or 40 discs that aren't nearly as fast, require hands a on approach (insert disc, copy files, eject disc, repeat), and are much more subjective to physical damage (it's hard to scratch a hard disk platter).
For the time being, I maintain that a RAID (mirroring) hard drive setup is the way to go.
I'm personally a huge fan of the D-Link DNS 323. Pop a couple of big drives in there and set it to RAID 1, and you automatically write a copy to each drive (hard drives do fail, so redundancy is key). It's network accessible as well as through higher-speed direct cables. You can even set it up to access it over the internet via FTP.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509
It costs less than 200 bucks : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822155003&Tpk=dns%2b323
Note it doesn't come with the drives, but they're relatively inexpensive.
For example, 1TB for 180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
So for 600 bucks, you have a fully redundant, fast, convenient, easily accessible 1000 gigs of storage.
Or go smaller, 500GB for 90: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288
I use an equivalent box by Synology. Its a bit more expensive than the D-Link, but I chose it because it spins down the drives when not in use which makes it quiter and consume less power. The Synology is chock full of features, easy to set up and use, and well supported by the company. Currently I have the device set to RAID 1 with two 750GB drives.
While I am in no super rush I am trying to get the whole process, computer, software, work flow, storage, long term storage, back-up, etc clear in my noggin.
I am even looking at the mac pro. Big change to give up all the PC stuff, and a bit more $$, but it seems to have everything I would want. Solid OS, 64 bit, lots of RAM with room to add more, 4 bays for internal HD's.
It does look like using HD's for long term storage might be the best, and most cost effective way to go.
Sam
Blu Ray technology sounds wonderful until you look into creation of the discs themselves.
I've found 1x burners, and 2x burners. Can you imagine how long it would take to create a 50 gig Blu Ray disc at 1x or 2x?
That's the stopping point for me, at this point. I don't mind waiting long enough to create a 4 gig DVD or even a dual layer DVD, but waiting for a 50 gig Blu Ray disc to create....well, I think my children's children would have children by the time it finished creating the first disc....and my oldest is 12.
I kid, but creation time is something to take into account (IMO) when looking at backup media such as Blu Ray....
Mike.
http://www.fourangelsphotography.com/
A full BD written at 1X will take (roughly) the same amount of time as a full CD at 1X or a full DVD at 1X.
The "x" is a comparison to how long it took to write a full CD on the original ("1X") CD-R drives.
It took about an hour to write a full CD. So it will take about an hour to write a full BD at 1X. Half that at 2X.
Mike.
http://www.fourangelsphotography.com/
1X on a CD ~ 150KB/s
1X on a DVD ~ 1.3MB/s
1X on a BD ~ 4.5MB/s
So if you are writing a 25GB BD-R...
25,000MB / (4.5MB/S) = 5,555 seconds = 1.5 hours.