Media for long term storage

What is the best solution ? I have used dvd media, and hhd's for back- up purposes.Have not gone the Blue Ray route yet.

Dvd Media

Great if your purpose is backing a a few hundred gigs.Bad for anything higher.

Dependability- I have a few thousand dvd's for storage, and only use Verbatim.I have disc's that are 10 years old that still work fine.This does take up space, and who knows about the real term longevity.Not the most efficient method.

Blue Ray Storage

The price of blank BD media has dropped dramatically over the past few years (as would be expected) and now it costs only a few dollars more to buy regular (HTL) discs as opposed to these LTH discs. What's the difference between them? Regular BD-R discs utilize a non-organic recording layer; LTH discs use organic dye just like recordable CD's and DVD's. This was a move to bring down the initially high prices of blank BD media by utilizing as much of the older manufacturing process as possible, but now that the prices have nearly leveled out between HTL and LTH, I think these discs have had their day for any serious use.Testing and anecdotal evidence is starting to show that LTH discs may not be as good as regular BD-R discs for long-term data retention.

BD burning puts a pretty decent strain on your computer, relative to CD or DVD recording. You need lots of RAM and/or a fast hard drive to make the process go smoothly.So, basically I would need to transfer all my files from dvd or hhd to sdd then burn

Cost vs depedability ?


Mechanical Hdd's

Lately I have been using hdd's to back up data, and store for long term.This means I keep then in a cool dry place,and use silica gel to keep moisture away.I only use wd drives.I normally use wd blues 1TB, and have a few older blacks I've used.

Backup to tape? That is how Enterprise does it. That said, THE CLOUD along with your DVD/BR/HDD's. The shelf life on DVD/BR are not that long so you need to be careful there.

I will be looking into that for sure

Tape drives are not cheap.The average price is 600 to 2000 dollars from just a quick search.I worked for a Biomedical Company for years.All daily back-ups were done with tape drives.They must be dependable.After a quick search.....Durability and the capacity.It can manage, PB of capacity for enterprise systems (1PB = 1024 TB). I need on of these, but I would have to take out a loan

M-disc look awesome, but the 4.7 g / disc limitation is a turn off. 60 dollars for a 20 pack is very expensive.It would cost me alot of cash to back up TB'S.This might a great option for very sensitive information.Love the durability factor.

I store everything on a server (fully redundant). For the stuff I really want extra security (about 700gig)...I copy the data to 2 different hardrives, silica packet in anti-static bags then 1 goes to my parents' house, the other in a safe deposit box.

I just might go the Hdd route.Not a bad option considering the cost, longevity, and space savings. I really thought about the portable usb3 drives, but data corruption seams to cause alot of problems.Nothing worse than losing 1 to 2 TB's of data in a instant.I had a mechanical drive go bad. It was a WD BLK.It was 4 years old, and I put some serious abuse on that drive.Even with the bad sectors, I still managed to get most of the data off.WD warranty was great.The refurbished drive still works fine.That was 1 1/2 years ago.

Just something I read while searching.

Hard drives, unlike ram, don't need electricity to keep data once it's been written. Because of this, a standard SATA drive can store and maintain your files for extremely long periods of time, even if it's shelved in a closet away from a computer. The actual storage lifespan will vary, though.

The standard hard drive warranty runs about 5 years. That number is assuming regular use, so if a drive were to be plugged in and have data written to it infrequently, and stored in a dry space with optimal temperatures, there's no reason that it couldn't last far longer than that—in the range of seven or even eight years. Always keep the drive safe from large magnetic fields, since they could help to degrade the data much more quickly, and keep that temperature rule in mind, since there are movable parts with grease that could dry up and crack in the wrong conditions. The actual temperature range varies from drive to drive, but keeping it somewhere between 50 and 110 degrees is a pretty safe bet.

Solid State, or "Flash" drives, though still new, would theoretically last longer. That being said, you should never count on more than a solid eight or nine years, because the whole point of data storage like this is to keep it safe, not to take chances. Technically, it's possible for a NAND flash drive to last far longer than a decade in storage, but every unit is made differently, and some might have cheaper components than others. As for heat and magnets, an SSD will fare much better than a traditional hard drive (it would take a supermagnet to even begin to affect one).

Then the problem becomes having a system to read it in 10 years. Most would be scurrying around to find something IDE now...so make sure you consider having hardware that can read it available as well. Same goes for optical/tape drives. At least with the cloud, its an internet connection only really and not a specific device with specific connectivity.

Curious where you are getting this storage information/theory from though...

I've read that bluray disks have a much longer life span than DVDs. Apparently due to how the layers are setup. I would do server+cloud+hdds

I guess the cloud is a viable option. I'm old school.I like to see, touch, hold, and repeat.Having hardware that can read it, is something I did not consider.Gaming is going that route too.Everything now seems to swing in the virtual world, or headed that way.I have pc games on disc that I made into iso's.Why ? So I can use a virtual drive.

I'm not too crazy about using the cloud for private (or otherwise sensitive stuff) for a variety of reasons.

funsoul said:

I'm not too crazy about using the cloud for private (or otherwise sensitive stuff) for a variety of reasons.

Click to expand...

Do tell........

'Cuzz "The Man" could easily see the information, of course.

That may be one reason. I'm looking for the 'variety' he was talking about but didn't mention, LOL!

Security is a big reason. Secure from 'the man' as well as the hacker element (tax forms, bank statements, medical records, password lists, etc). Definitely concerned whenever any group (read large numbers of people) can get access to data as regardless of 'safeguards', all it takes is one 'insider'. Can be partially mitigated through heavy encryption but what are the odds that I've got better encryption than 'they've' got resources, motivation, finances and hardware?

Availability of the cloud can/could also be an issue (although this is a somewhat lower-risk item as cloud downtime is generally only intermittent).

Data size...it's a pita to upload/download large volumes of data. Even if I only use the cloud for top-private content then the other risks become even larger.

Off-line data access. Know what I mean?

Data loss...also MAY be another lower risk item but if it does disappear it may be gone forever. This led me to think of just avoiding the small players that could go bankrupt, get shut down, etc but is my stuff any safer with the big boys?

Am sure there are others but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Yes...a lot of the items are mitigated by having additional off-line and off-site backups but if I feel iffy, I'll just copy the most sensitive stuff to encrypted jump drives and be done with it.

Net, net...I see some risks and usability issues with the cloud and with everything always mirrored on the server plus having 2 off-site hdd backups plus an encrypted jump drive or 2 I don't see any real benefit to the cloud other than remote access.

PS- Forgot to mention in my prior post that I update the off-site drives every 18-24 months. Format, chkdisk, replace if needed, encrypt, load updated data set then get back off-site. Figure checking up on them from time to time let's me ensure the back-up media is in good shape, update the data and move to some other format as times change (I used to do this stuff using dvds, cds before that, zip discs and even floppies...granted, had a lot less data in those days).

I had some apprehensions about large amounts of data, security, costs ect...Looks like I'll stick to my hdd back-up plan.A Western Digital Blue (1) TB is 65 dollars on Amazon.Nice to see hdd prices come down in price again.

Maybe this is the solution

Link

I just rotate through a few backup NAS devices with raid 1 in them. I figure that way if a drive fails I'm covered. I have two - one that is active and one that I keep off site. Pretty typical I think. I save cloud options for things like pictures and music. The cloud isn't yet viable when you're talking about TBs of data or sensitive info imo.

I use two Drobo Pros for storage. It's a really intelligent system, if a drive goes bad, the LED turns yellow, you pull it out and plug in a new drive and bammo...it's replaced... you never lose data. This is not true of the old Drobos (pro and FS). I learned the hard way.

A drobo would be overkill purely for backup though. You're paying a premium with no gain.