Blu-ray disks as Backup

[taltamir]

Listen to taltamir, he knows what I know. Consumer written Blu-ray and DVD are not as sturdy as you think. The only reason why you can play your (legitimately purchased) DVDs from 20 years ago is because the mechanics of how high-volume DVDs are pressed are completely different than how consumer-grade DVD-Rs are written. Mass-produced DVDs are actually mechanically stamped--not chemically changed--so there is no chemical degradation so you don't have to worry about water molecules in the air or whatever getting in and ruining the chemicals in the dye.

Huh, I was sure I mentioned it but apparently I didn't. You are correct that stamped discs are very different chemically, and vastly superior (and longer lasting) to anything "writeable"

 

[imported_ats]

Huh, I was sure I mentioned it but apparently I didn't. You are correct that stamped discs are very different chemically, and vastly superior (and longer lasting) to anything "writeable"

And the only way to get writable disks in the same ballpark is to use a physical phase change medium which BR disks aren't.

 

[Mark R]

And the only way to get writable disks in the same ballpark is to use a physical phase change medium which BR disks aren't.

BD-R is a phase change media.
BD-R LTH is a dye destruction media.

 

[Emulex]

You'd want to use PAR2 with rar splitting to get decent results in the event of a BD-R failing to read!

I remember the bad days of DVD-R's where you could safely write to 80% then boom they would drop dead due to poor construction!

 

[PliotronX]

Optical media has been the most reliable for me. High quality media (hint: JVC/Taiyo Yuden) and slower write speeds have kept all of my media readable, from a Yamaha 4X CD-R to many DVD+/-R to BD-R. None of my discs have failed to read any file at any point. I cannot say the same for hard drives or flash media. An intriguing type of BD-R is the M-Disc, apparently a lot of drives support it and it advertises a half life of something around 500 years which is well beyond when any functioning BD-R drive will be in use.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

As much as I thought there was promise for DVD (and later BlueRay) for long-term archival backup, I don't use optical disks much anymore for backup purposes. But this could be a weakness. My biggest objection: it takes time, just as tape takes time -- as corkyg said.

I have redundancy specific to chosen folders on my WHS-2011 system with Stablebit DrivePool. I back up the most important (therefore duplicated) folders to a hot swap HDD. These are incremental backups, so even if I run the backup procedure once weekly, they take mere minutes.

But it all depends on the nature of the data. How volatile is it, in terms of the frequency with which files change, and the number of files changed? Raise an example here: my client workstation automatic backups to the server. Highly volatile, therefore takes a long time to update the hot swap drive. But they already are backups of other systems. If the server craps out or I lose those duplicated folders entirely, there is nothing lost, since a stale backup reloaded to the server should get an update from all the client systems by the following evening.

And of course, the purpose of Stablebit duplication resolves much of the risk that one hard disk on the server will fail. If I want to, I can assure triplicate redundancy on the server -- and there's still plenty of available space to do it.

I'm occasionally replacing or swapping HDDs in the hotswap system, and I label them. I can't see any need for using optical discs in that scenario.

Other than a household fire (keeping in mind that I can run after grabbing the hot-swap drives, unless I'm not at home when it happens and I'm "retired") -- I downplay the idea of making one good backup HDD to store in a safety-deposit box or generally another location.

I think we've speculated about a nuk-a-ler attack and EMP. The chances in that event are significant that you'll quickly go to a better (or worse) place, with no need to take the data with you. If you survive and lose your data, you may also lose your hair. If you otherwise survive, you'll have a need for a lot of more conventional items before you have a need for your data. You should keep around some gold or other universal store of wealth; the paper money might not cut it.

I've been reluctant with the "cloud" revolution. I think I might investigate "cloud" storage as a further backup of backup. I just don't want to pay an annual subscription fee, and I have trouble visualizing data which isn't physically present in my home or business.

Gettin' old, I guess . . . .

 

[Jeff7181]

Optical media has been the most reliable for me. High quality media (hint: JVC/Taiyo Yuden) and slower write speeds have kept all of my media readable, from a Yamaha 4X CD-R to many DVD+/-R to BD-R. None of my discs have failed to read any file at any point. I cannot say the same for hard drives or flash media. An intriguing type of BD-R is the M-Disc, apparently a lot of drives support it and it advertises a half life of something around 500 years which is well beyond when any functioning BD-R drive will be in use.

Definitely use M-Disc if you want long-term archival of small amounts of data. If you're talking about multiple TB of data, this is not the best option as you'll have dozens of discs in your backup set.