Medium-sized data archive: CDs are nuts/impractical/risky; DVDs are OK...

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-- Medium-sized data archive: CDs are nuts/impractical/risky; DVDs are OK...

Posted by ali92 on Sep-19-2005 09:50:

Medium-sized data archive: CDs are nuts/impractical/risky; DVDs are OK...

...but will become cumbersome. I have around 500 GB (and counting) of data, mostly consisting of lossless (FLAC) and lossy (MP3) audio, but a nice-sized emulation-related collection (around 220 GB) has now entered my archive of data.

My question is: what's the best way to archive this lot of data on non-hard drive media? Since 2001, I've been using CDs for archival, but have sicne gotten a DVD burner & many blanks. So now, I'm transitioning to Taiyo Yuden (the best around) DVD-Rs for my data archival, alongside CDs for where it's convenient (like MP3-CDs, for instance). Is there a reasonable alternative to ~900 CD-Rs, ~130 DVD-Rs, or (what may become) 22 to 45 BDs (Blu-ray Discs)? I'd like Blu-Ray, but as it's not out for most consumers outside Japan, isn't a good option for me currently. Heck, I think this will be very expensive even in 2007, about 1.3 years since its launch outside Asia.

So, is a tape drive the best I can do for now, for large data archival? If I were to go with a tape drive, I'd like to use a common format that's been around for a while, is reliable/stable (of course!), and can store a lot of data (at least 20 GB/tape) natively (uncompressed). Lastly, I wish I could get it for 300 USD or lower, not counting P&P/S&H, blank tape, or any tax.

PS: Could I record & access individual files on a tape? I wouldn't want to buy a drive and find out that it can _only_ back up an entire HDD to soemthing like a single *.TAR (tarball or Tape ARchive) file, a la Norton Ghost and PowerQuest Drive Image.

Thanks for any information given about this solution...

Posted by jdat on Sep-19-2005 09:55:

ali92 always fit the geek question with everything laid out carefully in detail. Props to you

And humm sorry can't help you. But of a personal concern for myself as well.

With burned media my main issue is peeling over time

And for some serious tape drives 300 bucks just ain't going to cut it in the larger size ones.

Posted by chojin on Sep-19-2005 09:58:

i also made the transition from CD>DVD and have around 500-600 of them now.

i didn't realise they go shit after a long time :/ i thought as long as you keep them stored well then they're fine?

Posted by ali92 on Sep-19-2005 10:53:

quote:
Originally posted by chojin
i also made the transition from CD>DVD and have around 500-600 of them now.

i didn't realise they go shit after a long time :/ i thought as long as you keep them stored well then they're fine?
Yes. Even Taiyo Yuden media can go. :-(

I guess the only alternative is keep transferring, scanning, and sharing the data (as long as it's nothing that shouldn't be shared) with people.

Posted by ali92 on Sep-19-2005 10:57:

I guess I'll have to hope for BD's early arrival and just stick with DVD+/-R(9 too) / DVD-RAM (single or double-sided) for stuff that only a computer can use (most data files), and CD-R + DVD+/-R for audio stuff, like my lossless (FLAC/SHN/other) & lossy (MP3/WMA/Ogg Vorbis/MPEG-4 audio) audio data. BD would seem like the high-capacity (>20 GB per piece of media) format I'll end up with.

Posted by ali92 on Sep-19-2005 11:00:

quote:
Originally posted by jdat
ali92 always fit the geek question with everything laid out carefully in detail. Props to you

And humm sorry can't help you. But of a personal concern for myself as well.

With burned media my main issue is peeling over time

And for some serious tape drives 300 bucks just ain't going to cut it in the larger size ones.
I guess you're right. There's plenty of people spending around 5000+ USD for tape drive-related stuff. 300 USD is really low for this form of storage, considering that's not far above the price of some DVD writers (newest Plextor & Pioneer is around 150--200 USD?).