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What is safer for data -- a hard disk or a blue ray disc?

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mouser:
Say I want to archive a couple hundred gigabytes of data -- would i be better of burning it to a writable blu-ray disc or copying it to a hard drive placed on a shelf for long term storage?

I think the obvious answer, for important data, is probably: both.

But the question remains -- what would be the best media for storing terrabytes of data long term?

superboyac:
I would also be terribly interested in this.

I don't know how much blu ray discs are anymore, but if they are cheap, that's not a bad option, what is it 50GB per disc?

I'm a hard drive guy though.  I use file synchronization and back up the files in 2-3 separate drives.  I'm also trying to build a bigger tower or rack to hold up to 20 drives and really automate the process even more.  I think hard drives are the way to go for massive amounts of data, like terabytes you mentioned.  One 4TB drive or 80 blu ray discs?  In the early 2000s, I was backing stuff up regularly on cdr's, and i just don't have that kind of energy or desire anymore.

What is disturbing to me and complicates matters is that hard drives are becoming less in demand it seems since everyone has moved to mobile devices.  So they are not as cheap as we are used to seeing anymore, nor are they increasing in size as quickly as they used to.  Seems like 4TB is the limit currently and has been for a while.  So I'm not sure what the future of hard drives are.  I'd still prefer a hard drive over a SSD, but I'll wait until they catch up in capacity (probably a long time).

The other related thing to keep an eye out are the transfer protocols (esata, usb 3.0, thunderbolt).  None of them really caught on to any degree.  I went on a massive search to find a pcie card or something to add multiple usb 3.0 ports to my computer, and there are hardly any that offer more than one or two connections.  There's nothing for theunderbolt.  There's not much for esata either.  Some of those weird chinese sites like alibaba have some interesting stuff, but they aren't terribly reliable.

I'm curious if there are any side effects for hard drives that are sitting on a shelf for a long time (years).  Should you plug them in once in a while to keep them happy or anything like that?

I sometimes have disturbing formatting issues that come up with these large drives that i plug in and out of computers.  Let's say i put a bunch of data on a huge 4tb drive.  Then i take it out.  Later, I use it with an enclosure and a usb 3.0 connection.  Then I do the same with an esata.  Then i stick it into another computer.  Sometimes, while doing this, Windows will say the drive is unreadable or something, or that it has to be formatted, or that it is corrupted.  And I have a feeling that it is due to all the different cables/protocols the drive is being accessed with, but I can't really confirm it for sure.  But when the message comes up and the drive is a critical step in your backing up process, it's pretty scary.  I hate that feeling.  I'm always keeping a close eye on developments with hard drives, esata/sata, usb 3.0, thunderbolt/lightpeak, enclosures, etc.

SKA:
BDs have chemical/polymer coating which can degrade with exposure to moisture etc.
Current 7200rpm/10K rpm hard disks don't have such issues but could be affected by strong magnetic forces/radiation.
I choose hard disks(enterprise version better than consumer versions) over Blueray disks. Not keen on RAID in any form.

Ska

tomos:
I wonder how the "M-Disk" is getting on?
new DVD "M-Disc" perfect for archive material (dc link)


edit/ scratch that - they still dont have blue ray discs...
http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/

mwb1100:
I'm curious if there are any side effects for hard drives that are sitting on a shelf for a long time (years).  Should you plug them in once in a while to keep them happy or anything like that?
-superboyac (July 07, 2013, 11:31 PM)
--- End quote ---

Since hard discs are mechanical devices with bearings for the platters to spin on, I'd expect that it would be a good idea to periodically spin them up to help make sure the bearing doesn't seize.

Long ago I had a 20MB hard disc (yes, megabytes; this was a very long time ago) that had a 'stiction' problem (Stictionw). This wasn't a problem with the bearings, but of the heads sticking to the platters when the device wasn't in operation for a while.  When powered up, the platters wouldn't spin because there was enough friction between the heads and the platters they were resting on before spinning up.  I managed to get my data off the drive by taking the top off and giving the platters a little nudge near the hub.

I don't know if today's hard discs are susceptible to that same problem, but anything with moving parts may find it difficult to get going again after being unused for a long period.

So if you decide on using hard discs, I'd also work on a media rotation plan - that might be a good idea regardless of the medium you choose.  It might also be wise to use something like the parchive format (Parchivew) so that you have a chance for recovery if some pieces of the data were corrupted/lost. (Disclaimer - I haven't used anything like the parchive format myself, so I don't know how usable and effective it is in practice).

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