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I'm getting a new computer over the next few months, and I'm thinking of swapping the DVD-RW drive it will come with with a BluRay.
My intent is just to have something to archive photos. My wife takes a lot of photos and it's good to have some sort of backup. I do not watch movies on my computer, so it's not for movie playback.
I'm hearing bluray drives come with lots of bloatware. Is the capacity of DVD-RWs ok for storing photos?
thinking of swapping the DVD-RW drive it will come with with a BluRay. ...archive photos...do not watch movies on my computer.
1 photo is 20MB with a typical DSLR camera.
1000 photos is 20GB
A 64GB SD card can be had for $33 USD. (newegg.com)
That is 3200 photos.
The capacity of a DVD disk is 4.7GB
The capacity of a Blu-ray disk ranges from 25GB to 100GB.
1 photo is 20MB with a typical DSLR camera.
1000 photos is 20GB
A 64GB SD card can be had for $33 USD. (newegg.com)
That is 3200 photos.
The capacity of a DVD disk is 4.7GB
The capacity of a Blu-ray disk ranges from 25GB to 100GB.
Forget optical disks and use flash memory cards.
Hadn't thought of the flash drives. Sounds like something to consider.
What's their durability like? If they're exchanged between devices, shared, etc, are they as durable as discs? Also curious if flash cards can be used across devices/machines.
Any new computer will hold a TON of photos. Get a USB hard drive to backup the whole internal drive, pictures included. A 2.5" based 1 TB USB 3.0 hard drives are under $100. Windows' built in backup program can make a full system image so there's no need for extra software. Having a full system image means that you can replace a failed hard drive and restore very quickly from your last image.
In addition to the above, pay Crashplan $50/yr to backup all of your data to their servers, which includes the pictures. This part is automatic and gets your data safely off-site in case of a disaster like a fire or flood.
You never want to have one copy of anything important. It doesn't matter whether its on a hard drive, DVD, or flash drive. All media will fail. You just don't know when.
To answer your questions about flash drives, they're pretty durable but not immune to failure. I've had lots of them die. And I have others than are many years old and still work fine. Flash drives will work across a wide variety of machines. They come formatted FAT32 which means that any PC, Mac, or Linux machine can use them, as well as other things like TVs with a USB port for displaying pictures.
Optical media can be damaged by direct sunlight, scratches, and they do decay with age. I'd say flash is probably more durable than home-burned optical media but being writable, you could pick up a virus from another computer unless your drive has a write-protect switch. Still, I use flash drives for short-term storage and transportation, much like a floppy was to years ago. Anything important get backed up at least two different ways.
Another thing to consider is cost: That $33 64GB costs $.51/GB. A $90 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive (WD on Newegg) is $0.09/GB.
My intent is just to have something to archive photos. My wife takes a lot of photos and it's good to have some sort of backup. I do not watch movies on my computer, so it's not for movie playback.
If you do want to watch commercial movies on BD you need HDCP compliant system which generally is a graphics card and monitor with HDMI.
Quote:
I'm hearing bluray drives come with lots of bloatware. Is the capacity of DVD-RWs ok for storing photos?
Well the one I have a bunch of stuff on the disc, none of which was installed.
RW's should only be used testing purposes or files you can lose, they are more prone to failure than standard -R or +R. Storage on any optical disc is nice backup but it shouldn't be your only backup, burnable media will fail at some point. It's not matter of if they will fail but when.
Take EscapeCalifornia's advice and get a USB drive and copy your files to it for backup. There is no storage medium that isn't prone to failure, you should have at least two copies.
...and right on cue, just as I'm actually starting to realize the importance of backing up and seeking advice on here (see my recent posts), this happens:
It just doesn't happen, but it happens while I'm typing up a research paper. Number 1, is I need all my school files and assignments. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! That's ok as luckily, all my school files are backed up on Google Drive (I don't care, cloud is a lifesaver).
Now here's the thing I'm hoping. I'm hoping that I can at least read the hard drive somehow from a different computer. I'd like to be able to transfer as a first priority all the photos. 2nd priority is a few folders with miscellaneous documents. 3rd priority, but not urgent is to transfer as many MP3s as I can out onto my iPod classic*. Other than that I can live with the hard drive dying.
With the state the hard drive/computer apparently is recovering the type of data possible? I use a login to get into Windows Vista. Also my keyboard is wireless so I've been unable to boot in safemode, but the latest now is that windows is not even loading, it just hangs at a black screen.
*It's 160GB so there's plenty of space there. By the way, is reverse syncing on an ipod possible? Can I load music from the computer onto the ipod?
It just doesn't happen, but it happens while I'm typing up a research paper.
Go into the options of your word processor and turn the time limit for the auto save on if it's off and set a lower time limit. The auto save doesn't overwrite the original, it saves to temporary file. You'll have access to both the original and the temporary file in the event the application/computer crashes
Quote:
Now here's the thing I'm hoping. I'm hoping that I can at least read the hard drive somehow from a different computer.
This error could be caused by a virus amongst other things. Try some of the things here:
If there is nothing physically wrong with the drive you can download a copy of Knoppix which is Linux on bootable CD, once you burn the disc you just stick it in your DVD player and start the machine. If it doesn't boot into Knoppix on restart you need to go into your computers BIOS setting nd male sure the DVd player is first drive to boot. Once you boot into Knoppix use it to copy your files to some external media. Download a copy of DBAN and run that. From there get rid of the computer or reinstall windows.
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SD card
