How obsolete are optical discs? Do you still use them?

[Golgatha]

So if you need to mail a video of a family wedding you filmed to an elderly non-computer literate relative who was unable to attend, are you going to:-

A: Mail a 3TB HDD with USB caddy with the video on it (assuming they have a computer or you'll be mailing one of them too to give them something to plug it into, complete with instructions on how to use it)? Or

B: Burn a standard DVD-Video, mail it in an envelope, they put it in their idiot-proof DVD player, press play (and have a copy they can keep).

ODD's have their use. Aside from the obvious read only use of ripping / playing CD's / DVD's / Blu-Ray's in HTPC's (how do you think "all that stuff online" got there in the first place?), people use them all the time for DVD-Video discs for home recordings, etc. As for "yeah but I can stream everything", as someone said, first of all only a fraction of total DVD/BR catalog is available from streaming providers online, and secondly 3MB/s is not 30MB/s 1080p, no matter how much some salesmen hype it as the "wonder replacement" for Blu-Ray's. For those with little "critical" data, burning to a DVD-RW still makes sense as a dirt cheap tertiary backup, even if you use 2x HDD's as primary & secondary.

Speaking of "generally silly people", that reminds me of a friend who built a HTPC living room PC without an optical drive. "I don't need one - I rip all my stuff to my media server then stream it across the house". So what happened when a few friends came round with a Blu-Ray he didn't already have and wasn't available on his streaming service (local or Internet)? "Hang on, first I'll rip it to disc on my media server upstairs, and then when that's done, I'll add it to the library and stream it back to the TV over the LAN. It'll only take 20-30mins" was greeted with "Don't worry, I literally only live down the road. I'll walk home and get my Blu-Ray player. It'll be 3x quicker than sitting here like nerds waiting for you to 'setup' a simple film..." from one of the girls. The next time she came round, she brought her standalone Blu-Ray player along "just in case he hadn't yet bought himself a Blu-Ray drive for his 'Home Theater' PC" (which he spent 10mins the first time around openly boasting the lack of to exaggerate the "importance" of local streaming and the amount of body energy you can save not having to "press open, put disc in, press play"). It was one of those "dork vs normal person" moments you could've written a 'The Big Bang Theory' style sketch out of...

I keep an optical drive in all my PCs just so I can read discs people bring over easily. I use my BD-Rs for backing up refreshly formatted PCs (neighbors, family, etc.) too because I don't want to archive all that stuff forever on my own hard drives. I make sure they have a 2nd disc or an external so they can have 2 copies of the full disc image, and for future incremental backups. I keep a USB 2.0 Blu-ray burner around for the rare occasion I need to restore someone's PC to a fresh install. It's come in handy when making multiple copies of a promotional DVD image for my father-in-laws business a couple of times too.

But yeah, optical drives are about 99% useless to me now that 128GB USB 3.0 drives are less than $40 each and USB external HDDs are dirt cheap for the capcities needed; not to mention orders of magnitude faster for transfers.

 

[poofyhairguy]

So if you need to mail a video of a family wedding you filmed to an elderly non-computer literate relative who was unable to attend, are you going to:-

A: Mail a 3TB HDD with USB caddy with the video on it (assuming they have a computer or you'll be mailing one of them too to give them something to plug it into, complete with instructions on how to use it)? Or

B: Burn a standard DVD-Video, mail it in an envelope, they put it in their idiot-proof DVD player, press play (and have a copy they can keep).

C: Put it on YouTube and email them the link to view on their smartphone/iPad.

I mean, it is 2015 you know.

And your Blu Ray example is fair but rare. I have a dusty Blu Ray player that just sits there for that situation, but I will be damned if I am going to run most of my media consumption through it. Nowadays Blu Ray players are so cheap (I got one for $40 on black friday) having one in the house for "legacy" media isn't a big deal.

 

[Cerb]

I just got a car with the factory CD player. FM is terrible, especially morning shows. So, until I get around to replacing it, I now have some renewed use for optical media.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

C: Put it on YouTube and email them the link to view on their smartphone/iPad.

I mean, it is 2015 you know.

One word: privacy

And your Blu Ray example is fair but rare. I have a dusty Blu Ray player that just sits there for that situation, but I will be damned if I am going to run most of my media consumption through it. Nowadays Blu Ray players are so cheap (I got one for $40 on black friday) having one in the house for "legacy" media isn't a big deal.

Fair point. But we're not primarily talking media consumption, but data storage and backup.

 

[poofyhairguy]

One word: privacy

Set the video to private and just share it with them. There are settings you can manage on YouTube.

Plus who cares about privacy for a wedding video? It isn't state secrets on something. Heck with Youtube the elderly person can share with friends without passing a disk around.

Fair point. But we're not primarily talking media consumption, but data storage and backup.

In which case a proper RAID server with parity is a better bet than almost any optical disk.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Set the video to private and just share it with them. There are settings you can manage on YouTube.

Plus who cares about privacy for a wedding video? It isn't state secrets on something. Heck with Youtube the elderly person can share with friends without passing a disk around.

Guess we have different privacy expectations. I'd rather not upload anything to Google, Facebook or whatever, thank you. Why? Because I've actually bothered to read their ToS regarding uploads, and can't agree to them. So though luck for me...

In which case a proper RAID server with parity is a better bet than almost any optical disk.

I think that particular horse has been flogged to death. Read the thread... :whiste:

 

[smakme7757]

Optical Drive = Yes
Play Blu-Ray = Yes
Burn = Yes

Not used that often, but very useful when i first need it.

 

[BSim500]

In which case a proper RAID server with parity is a better bet than almost any optical disk.

RAID mirroring doesn't = a secure backup by itself. It's still a good thing to have an offline backup (with or without a NAS) for a variety of reasons (accidental file deletion, corruption from Malware, NAS frying power surges, etc). For static non-changeable data (eg, irreplaceable wedding photo's), a write-once medium gives the ultimate in security vs malware / "ransomware", as does being 95-99% offline vs being always on. As does being able to separate the data surface from the reading mechanism. A friend of mine experienced the exact same thing as the guy in the above link - a nearby lightning strike during a storm went right through his surge protector, fried his always on NAS and damaged the electronics in both drives (and without leaving a trace of the surge in the surge protector when it was sent back to manufacturer for an insurance claim). "Eggs in one basket", etc. For those who use ODD's for data backup, it's not an "either or" scenario vs HDD's as many use them as tertiary backups.

 

[poofyhairguy]

RAID mirroring doesn't = a secure backup by itself.

Oh of course. That is why you have two raid servers!

I will tell you the truth though, I trust my Unraid servers more with my data than optical blanks made from organic material. Many are coasters within a few years or not in completely optimal storage/handling conditions. Nice thing about Unraid is thanks to a lack of striping I can upgrade the same array over and over without rebuilding the array or any of the backup and restore mess. My main Unraid server is full of completely different disks than I started with but all the same data without rebuilding the array once. An optical disk can't move its data seamlessly to another disk without you burning it. No way makes it easier to drag data through the years than an Unraid server.

Some optical disk DVD blanks are good and made of nonorganic material. Those I use to backup small things like pictures or essential documents. But we are talking a few disks worth of data total. Plus I also backup that same stuff in "the cloud." The more places you put important data the safer it is.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Oh of course. That is why you have two raid servers!

Some of us don't have unlimited funds. A blank blu-ray is... a bit... cheaper, then buying, not to mention running an additional server. Not all of the world is privileged with cheap electricity.

That additional server is still vulnerable to power-surges etc., unless you keep it permanently off-line. In which case your whole ease-of-use argument is negated...

I will tell you the truth though, I trust my Unraid servers more with my data than optical blanks made from organic material. Many are coasters within a few years or not in completely optimal storage/handling conditions. Nice thing about Unraid is thanks to a lack of striping I can upgrade the same array over and over without rebuilding the array or any of the backup and restore mess. My main Unraid server is full of completely different disks than I started with but all the same data without rebuilding the array once. An optical disk can't move its data seamlessly to another disk without you burning it. No way makes it easier to drag data through the years than an Unraid server.

Some optical disk DVD blanks are good and made of nonorganic material. Those I use to backup small things like pictures or essential documents. But we are talking a few disks worth of data total. Plus I also backup that same stuff in "the cloud." The more places you put important data the safer it is.

Why the whole argument then? The way you're describing is precisely what I'm doing. Except I'm running a server with ZFS...

As for media, again use blu-rays. They don't have an organic recording layer (phase-change actually, just avoid the LTH-variety), and can fit a lot more data. Also have even more robust error-correction then DVDs.

 

[B-Riz]

Did not know BD-XL writer prices are reasonable now...

Media prices are not bad either.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Bluray-Triple-Blueray-Printable/dp/B00G5RVT5W/

Time to backup the Steam library!!! :biggrin:

 

[poofyhairguy]

Some of us don't have unlimited funds. A blank blu-ray is... a bit... cheaper, then buying, not to mention running an additional server. Not all of the world is privileged with cheap electricity.

I usually have a very ethnocentric view of technology.

That additional server is still vulnerable to power-surges etc., unless you keep it permanently off-line.

Or have some nice APCs, like I do.

Why the whole argument then? The way you're describing is precisely what I'm doing. Except I'm running a server with ZFS...

ZFS can't grow as easily as Unraid. It's more like real RAID in that regard. Striping is a pain if you don't need the speed.

As for media, again use blu-rays. They don't have an organic recording layer (phase-change actually, just avoid the LTH-variety), and can fit a lot more data. Also have even more robust error-correction then DVDs.

Good info, I will look into that as a picture backup. No way I do that for video though, it would take me years to physically burn the disks needed to backup my massive library. Rsync does it with my two servers while I sleep.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Or have some nice APCs, like I do.

A few years ago we had a lightning strike here, that fried my server/NAS and pretty much everything electrical in the house, despite APC protection. Not to mention what happened in the neighbourhood. Lets just say there were some happy TV salesmen that week. So forgive me if I'm a bit paranoid...

Didn't matter that much, except for the dead hardware, since I keep at least two good copies (besides two-layer backup, with blu-rays as tertiary for important stuff) on different computers, one of which was physically removed from the wall socket. But still...

ZFS can't grow as easily as Unraid. It's more like real RAID in that regard. Striping is a pain if you don't need the speed.

Yup. Its a trade-off between data protection and ease of expansion. But by the time I'm running out of space (6x 2TB) I'll properly have to rebuild the server/NAS anyway, since the case can't fit more then 6 HDDs.

Besides, plain bulk storage is cheap these days. You can get one or two secondary 4TB drives pretty cheaply. Won't have that good fault tolerance, but for non-important stuff they're good enough.

Good info, I will look into that as a picture backup. No way I do that for video though, it would take me years to physically burn the disks needed to backup my massive library. Rsync does it with my two servers while I sleep.

For video I agree with you. Definitely not worth the hassle.

 

[mikeymikec]

Good info, I will look into that as a picture backup. No way I do that for video though, it would take me years to physically burn the disks needed to backup my massive library. Rsync does it with my two servers while I sleep.

An SSD and two DVD writers cuts the time taken down considerably

(in case anyone is wondering, I've ended up with two in my PC because of weird issues with different drives over the last 5 years)

 

[StrangerGuy]

Meh, even If I somehow *need* a optical drive I would just buy a cheapo external one which I don't see the need to in the foreseeable future.

ODD drives in a laptop in particular are just a massive waste of space.

 

[mikeymikec]

ODD drives in a laptop in particular are just a massive waste of space.

Unless you take into account the following:

1 - Laptops are largely used / designed as a sole computing device; they're not meant to compliment another piece of kit.

2 - Laptops are designed to be as portable as possible.

For users who sometimes need it, lugging around an additional DVD drive and cabling detracts from point 2 in particular. For some people it would be as irritating as a laptop with a single USB port, yet for other people USB isn't anywhere near as necessary as it was before say the rise of wifi printers, and phone/tablet type devices that can communicate via the Internet / cloud / Bluetooth.

A lot of people rarely need optical drives, but it's bloody annoying to need one and not have it. The same goes for printers for a lot of people. But to define multi USB ports, printers or optical drives as a "massive waste of space" is just a silly sweeping statement that suggests you believe that your use of computing devices has any sort of defining bearing on what the masses use such devices for.

Some people go for laptops rather than desktops because they like to tidy the computer easily and completely out of the way. The more 'bits' a computer has, the less easy it is to tidy.

A good reason for optical discs (and therefore drives) to remain is that they're an easy and disposable method of transferring a significant amount of data when 'super fast' broadband is not something that the majority has access to (both up and downstream). Do I really want to post an 8GB flash drive to someone I don't know very well? Are two DVD recordables that much of a sacrifice? Or perhaps posting one's only 16GB flash drive for say 1.5GB of data for something that needs to arrive ASAP?

 

[corkyg]

With regard to laptop portability, that is one of the main reasons I like my Thinkpad's Ultrabay. The data drive is quickly and easily swapped with the optical if necessary. The optical has a padded case and travels in my laptop bag - no extra cables or bulk box needed.

Obsolete? I don't think so.

 

[maddie]

For all us OLD style folks that are obsolete, etc. Keep the faith.

Check out the tables on page 27 of the PDF.

People who feel that the latest is ALWAYS the greatest should really be less condescending.



SSDs lose data if left without power for just 7 days

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ssds-lose-data-if-left-without-power-just-7-days-1500402

Linked paper
http://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/Alvin_Cox [Compatibility Mode]_0.pdf

 

[rh71]

I use it maybe a handful of times a year. Last used a week ago when I burned an MP3 CDR for my car. I don't want the hassle of flipping around my smartphone screen for music. It's just easier selecting from the car screen menu. 110 songs is fine for how often I drive.

Also I had to get drivers from a mini CD recently since the website blew.

 

[StinkyPinky]

C: Put it on YouTube and email them the link to view on their smartphone/iPad.

I mean, it is 2015 you know.

And your Blu Ray example is fair but rare. I have a dusty Blu Ray player that just sits there for that situation, but I will be damned if I am going to run most of my media consumption through it. Nowadays Blu Ray players are so cheap (I got one for $40 on black friday) having one in the house for "legacy" media isn't a big deal.

It's not rare at all. Many of us have elderly parents/relatives who wouldn't know what the hell a thumb drive is, but are able to use a DVD. My father likes me to burn movies to DVD format for him and also send some to uncles/aunties etc also in their late 70's. They just put it in their DVD drive and press play. It just works for them, no need to do anything different.

 

[mikeymikec]

SSDs lose data if left without power for just 7 days

That was posted on Slashdot a few days ago. IIRC according to the comments, it applied to enterprise SSDs, not consumer ones (different rules apply apparently regarding data retention), and the problematic scenario required the SSDs to be kept in a warmer environment than when they were last running. The warmer the environment, the shorter the data retention was.

Side note, while there were a few ignorant yet condescending posters on this thread, I don't think anyone here recommended using an SSD for data backup (which is what most people here were talking about).

 

[maddie]

That was posted on Slashdot a few days ago. IIRC according to the comments, it applied to enterprise SSDs, not consumer ones (different rules apply apparently regarding data retention), and the problematic scenario required the SSDs to be kept in a warmer environment than when they were last running. The warmer the environment, the shorter the data retention was.

Side note, while there were a few ignorant yet condescending posters on this thread, I don't think anyone here recommended using an SSD for data backup (which is what most people here were talking about).

It applies to both client and enterprise drives as # weeks retention as a function of active and power off temps. Client is better than enterprise but still not fantastic.

For example on client SSD NOT enterprise [enterprise a lot worse]
active [40] power off [35] data retention = 26 weeks
active [40] power off [30] data retention = 52 weeks
active [35] power off [35] data retention = 20 weeks
active [35] power off [30] data retention = 39 weeks

What if temps rise in hot climates or in storage? One might quicker use a computer in an air conditioned room and leave same in a warmer area.

Also, what about USB flash storage as some recommend? Would this not also apply?

The JEDEC paper has the info in tabular form. Page 27
http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...ww.jedec.org/sites/default/f...0Mode%5D_0.pdf

 

[bigboxes]

I use it maybe a handful of times a year. Last used a week ago when I burned an MP3 CDR for my car. I don't want the hassle of flipping around my smartphone screen for music. It's just easier selecting from the car screen menu. 110 songs is fine for how often I drive.

Also I had to get drivers from a mini CD recently since the website blew.

That's what I used to think. I carry three folders of 50+ tracks for just such an emergency. I am in the process of adding my ten all-time favorite albums as well as my favorite soundtracks of various artists. Not having to house 10+ CDs is a great thing.

Seriously, being able to add and subtract digital files from our phones is a great invention, not some insurmountable task. If you give up on adapting to new technologies then you will be missing out. Having a lot of music/video files on demand on your cell phone is not a bad thing. Not being able to manage them is. Good luck.

Edit: If I didn't make it clear, I have a Note 3. I store quite a bit of data on my phone and I want to make it more efficient at such tasks. The sound quality @ 320kbps sounds great to me if the source is good. I love the ability to take music digitally with me. It's just my laziness to do it completely.