Anyone using Blu Ray discs to archive data?

[Cheektowaga_Chester]

If archiving data is what you want to do, buy two cheap hard drives that are big enough to contain all your data. Back up to both. The MTBF of the most reliable storage system in the world is less than the MTBF of both of your cheap hard drives.

[thelopez2]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LA

Hey Ho, what ever happened to the promise of Blu Ray Recordable/Rewritable technology?

As far as I know, Blu Ray as an archive medium has not caught on like DVD-R/DVD-RW did in its heyday.

Of course, part of this is due to the cost of hard drives and how much they've come down in the last decade.

Still, there are advantages to having your data on discs. I've been researching a Blu Ray recorder and discs to go with it and it looks like the best option is Ebay, with most sellers from Asia.

Without understanding, you size, frequency, and recovery requirement, how can anyone say which tool is best. The optical drive has changed the most in recent times. The way people use Hard drives , SD cards, and Tapes haven't changed a lot. The capacity is what has changed the most, but there has been backwards compatibility with the new technology. With optical, it would seem, you'd want to change either change your media type or writer every few years.

So what are you backing up, how much how often, from how many computers, what are your recovery requirement, do you want your backup to be offline when not in use?

[I_Love_LA]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

My primary backup for most files is 2 drives in a RAID1 configuration that is "My Documents", "My pictures" etc. This insures everything that is current is backed up, it is not 100% bulletproof but nothing is. With the RAID1 configuration you almost eliminate the most common reason for loss of data which is hard drive failure. The OS and applications reside on a SSD. Whenever I install something I make sure any irretrievable information is stored on the RAID drives.

I make backups of the contents of the raid drive to a networked drive but I really need to work out a better system to keep it more current. Larger files like videos unless I'm working on them I have only on the networked drive and the original tape is stored at relatives house.

I have BR burner here and I'm going to use that for making backups of the RAID drives to also store at relatives house but the issue there is keeping it current.

I have my own server so I have additional options like storing backups of the most important files half way across the country.

Again it all comes down to the question of affordability and feasibility. Congrats for having a "back up" plan but most folks don't have the skills to do what you do. Plus it's more expensive and time consuming too. It boils down to how valuable your data is.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LA

Plus it's more expensive and time consuming too.

Note you don't need a drive for the OS. Your RAID drives can contain the OS, perhaps you might even want to do that. The RAID drives are certainly more expensive in single sytem becsue you need two drives for the same amount of data that will fit on one but that's case if you're using an external drive for backup. It's not more time consuming, quite the opposite because that's all done in the background through hardware. When I write or update a file it gets written to both drives simultaneously, I also get a slight boost in performance for reads because the file can be read from two drives at once. One important point to make here is it removes the human factor and the need to initiate the backup, it's constant and up to date.

When one drive fails I'm going to know it and at that point I'll be able to continue to use the system with the healthy drive but now I'm at the same risk as anyone else with a single drive. You replace the failed drive with a new one and it's automagically rebuilt using the data from the good drive so you're back to square one.

The Achilles heal of relying on just a RAID 1 configuration is twofold A)if you have data corruption it spans both drives and B) if you have an issue that affects both drives like a power surge smoking them both at once. That's where you revisioned archives come in on external drive, blu-ray or whatever.