Optical Storage Comparison

[DanceswithUnix]

It depends greatly on the quality of the media used, for example some made in Japan Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden discs should last decades if properly cared for.

Add the cost of running a climate controlled fridge for a couple of decades then?


Edit to add: ...and a backup fridge?

[watercooled]

It shouldn't be necessary for good quality media, a cool, dry, dark place should be enough. An airtight box with a packet of desiccant thrown in would be great for long-term storage. The 'dark' bit is also very important, as the dye can degrade rapidly in sunlight.

If you're going to spend any amount of time/money using optical media for storage, it would be a good idea to do some research on media/drive quality/compatibility and forums like myce (formerly cdfreaks) would be a good place to start.

[jim]

Update 4:

12/09: 650 DVDs @ £21 for a 100 pack - £140 - 5p/gig
07/10: 650 DVDs @ £17 for a 100 pack - £110 - 4p/gig
01/12: 650 DVDs @ £21 for a £100 pack - £140 - 5p/gig
11/12: 650 DVDs @ £18 for a 100 pack - £115 - 4p/gig

12/09: 360 DL-DVDs @ £25 for a 25 pack - £360 - 12p/gig
07/10: 360 DL-DVDs @ £22 for a 25 pack - £315 - 10p/gig
12/10: 360 DL-DVDs @ £18 for a 25 pack - £260 - 9p/gig
01/12: 360 DL-DVDs @ £22 for a 25 pack - £315 - 10p/gig
11/12: 360 DL-DVDs @ £22 for a 25 pack - £315 - 10p/gig

12/09: 120 25GB BD-Rs @ £110 for a 25 pack - £520 - 17p/gig
12/10: 120 25GB BD-Rs @ £100 for a 25 pack - £480 - 16p/gig
01/12: 120 25GB BD-Rs @ £83 for a 25 pack - £400 - 13p/gig
11/12: 120 25GB BD-Rs @ £32 for a 25 pack - £155 - 5p/gig

12/09: 60 50GB BD-Rs @ £220 for a 25 pack - £520 - 17p/gig
12/10: 60 50GB BD-Rs @ £185 for a 25 pack - £445 - 15p/gig
01/12: 60 50GB BD-Rs @ £185 for a 25 pack - £445 - 15p/gig
11/12: 60 50GB BD-Rs @ £144 for a 50 pack - £175 - 6p/gig

Or

12/09: 2 HD154UIs @ £75 each - £150 - 5p/gig
07/10: 2 HD154UIs @ £60 each - £120 - 4p/gig
12/10: 2 HD153WIs @ £52 each - £104 - 3p/gig
01/12: 1 Deskstar 5K3000 @ £155 each - £155 - 5p/gig
11/12: 1 Seagate ST3000 @ £100 each - £100 - 3p/gig

12/09: 19 Intel 160GB SSDs @ £340 each - £6460 - £2.15/gig
12/10: 19 Intel 160GB SSDs @ £290 each - £5510 - £1.85/gig
01/12: 12 Intel 250GB SSDs @ £395 each - £4740 - £1.58/gig
11/12: 12 Intel 240GB SSDs @ £140 each - £1680 - £0.56/gig

There we have it folks! Blu-ray discs are now on a par with DVDs, and also with hard disks during the Thai floods issues. And in the same period, we've had a big plummet in SSD prices.

We still have the proviso that hard disks are approximately half the price, but this is now a reasonable solution to the problem.

And on the USB front, still the same:

11/12: 23 Kingston 128GB USB3 Drives @ £127 each - £2921 - £0.97/gig

[Biscuit]

11/12: 23 Kingston 128GB USB3 Drives @ £127 each - £2921 - £0.97/gig

I think its worth pointing out you can pick up a USB 2.0 64GB drive for ~£25 - 48 of them would be 3TB which is £1200 - ~£0.40/GB

You can do it cheaper than that, im just kind of averaging here.

[Macadee]

You'll also need to factor in the regularity of the back-ups, and eventual disposal of old back up media.

Annual cost of 1 back-up per month:

11/12: 650 DVDs @ £18 for a 100 pack - £115 - 4p/gig * 12 =48p/gig
11/12: 360 DL-DVDs @ £22 for a 25 pack - £315 - 10p/gig *12 = £1.20/gig
11/12: 120 25GB BD-Rs @ £32 for a 25 pack - £155 - 5p/gig * 12 = 60p/gig
11/12: 60 50GB BD-Rs @ £144 for a 50 pack - £175 - 6p/gig * 12 = 72p / gig

or (HDD/SSD, two can be used on alternate months and overwritten)

11/12: 1 Seagate ST3000 @ £100 each - £100 - 3p/gig * 2 = 6p/gig
11/12: 12 Intel 240GB SSDs @ £140 each - £1680 - £0.56/gig * 2 = £1.12/gig

The HDD method stands way out in cost, and more so in your time sat doing back-ups.

[jim]

You'll also need to factor in the regularity of the back-ups, and eventual disposal of old back up media.

Personally, I don't, as they would be used for a one-time, permanent backup.

Certainly if you're going to change the data on a routine basis then this would be totally bonkers.

[jim]

I think its worth pointing out you can pick up a USB 2.0 64GB drive for ~£25 - 48 of them would be 3TB which is £1200 - ~£0.40/GB

You can do it cheaper than that, im just kind of averaging here.

True. But the thought of 3TB over USB2 makes my brain melt

[watercooled]

Burning 650 DVD wouldn't exactly be enjoyable either and even with 60 BD's, you're likely to get at least a couple of coasters when burning, and you'd certainly want to use some sort of parity when you have so many points of failure.

It would be interesting to include tape, but it would be relatively hard to compare as the cost varies greatly depending on how much you're backing up; the tapes are fairly cheap, and reusable, but the drives are very expensive. Just guessing, but it probably only makes sense over a stack of HDDs if you have dozens, possibly hundreds, of terabytes to back up. I'll try to get together some figures tomorrow when I get home, provided I remember.

[Biscuit]

True. But the thought of 3TB over USB2 makes my brain melt

You could load up all your USB ports and transfer to multiple ones simultaneously though, would be expensive to do this with blu-ray or DVD unless you already have a bucket load of drives.

Also worth pointing out this chap is still selling BD-R for really cheap:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50-BLU-RAY...item2eb4f00ad8

50 pack for £33
100 Pack for £60

I have been using them for a while now, think the only bad burns i have had have been due to using crap software. Once i switched to IMGBurn i haven't had any. Will stick a few of the disks in tonight and check the data is still OK.

[mikerr]

SSD comparison is interesting - had a client using SSDs as backup - since they're more physically robust than HDDs.

Slightly OT:
Optical disks (and floppies before them) were always semi-disposable - you'd burn a disk of data to give to someone,
and not ask for it back ( cost < £1)

USB drives haven't totally replaced that - nowadays you put it on a usb drive, and want the drive back - or ask for their usb drive to put stuff on.

I wish the mini-DVD (8cm) disks had become more popular really.

[scaryjim]

And on the USB front, still the same:

11/12: 23 Kingston 128GB USB3 Drives @ £127 each - £2921 - £0.97/gig

64GB drives are < £50, so 47x 64GB Corsair Voyager @ £46.73 each == £2196.31 - £0.73/gig. If you're considering 60 BD-Rs there's no reason not to consider 47 pen drives

I'm still going to go with tape as the best option. Either:

an up-front £400 investment for a DAT 72GB (compressed) tape drive and SCSI card, but then 42x 72GB DAT tapes @ £11.99 each = £503.58 - £0.17/gig
OR
an upfront investment of £1300 for an LTO-5 tape drive and SAS card, but then 1x 1.5TB native (3TB compressed) LTO-5 tape for £38.39 each = £38.39 - £0.01/gig

I suppose the question is, how often do you want to back up?

I wish the mini-DVD (8cm) disks had become more popular really.

I never worked out why minidiscs didn't take off for computer storage, you know. Same capacity as a CD, but in a robust plastic cover so more durable. It looked like a perfect replacement for floppy disks to me, but for some reason no-one did it - I suppose because CD-Rs were so readily available. Always seemed a shame to me though...

[Funkstar]

I never worked out why minidiscs didn't take off for computer storage, you know. Same capacity as a CD, but in a robust plastic cover so more durable. It looked like a perfect replacement for floppy disks to me, but for some reason no-one did it - I suppose because CD-Rs were so readily available. Always seemed a shame to me though...

MiniDisks had the same music capacity, but I'm positive they didn't have the same data capacity. The music was ATRAC3 encoded if I remember right.

edit ok, half right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc#MD_Data

Originally they were 305MB, then 650MB with MD-Data2, later increased to 1GB with Hi-MD. I don't think the three were really compatible with each other either.

[Biscuit]

im always reminded of...

[scaryjim]

edit ok, half right.

Interesting stuff, particularly that DataMD couldn't use standard audio MDs to record on - definitely explains why they weren't pushed how I thought they should be. tbh in the mid 90s a 305MB re-recordable storage medium to replace floppies would probably have sold like hot cakes; even more so if you could've used it to record audio on as well. I wonder why it took them until 2004 to find a way to use standard disks to store both audio and files...? Surely it shouldn't have been that big a technical problem?

[jim]

I suppose the question is, how often do you want to back up?

Once

[Funkstar]

64GB drives are < £50, so 47x 64GB Corsair Voyager @ £46.73 each == £2196.31 - £0.73/gig. If you're considering 60 BD-Rs there's no reason not to consider 47 pen drives

Intenso 64GB Business-Level USB Flash Drive - £21.98

So that's 47 x £21.98 = £1033.06 or £0.34/gig

Not quite at the same level as optical media, but better than SSDs (ignoring the fact I would much rather use a bunch of SSDs than some cheap ass USB pen )