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

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superboyac:
That problem can be caused by not dismounting (safe removal) the drive correctly when using an USB or eSATA connection (the write back cache is not written to the disk before it's shut down, as it should, which may cause data loss or corruption). Some eSATA drives like WD MyBook can not be dismounted when first mounted (Windows does not show the option), others can. When first plugged in you have to keep them running until you shut down the PC.
-zenzai (July 12, 2013, 05:18 AM)
--- End quote ---
That's something I need to remember.  You never want a little impatient urge to ruin a 4TB drive.  :(

Vurbal:
I would never trust important data to long term storage on any burned optical disc. The problem is that nobody really knows how quickly the organic dye used will last. We're only now getting an understanding of how quickly the dye on DVD recordables degrades. For BD it's still an almost complete unknown. The manufacturers make claims but those are theoretical and as we're finding out with DVD they should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

If you're going to go that direction my recommendation would be to find 2 different types of disc that use different dyes and make duplicate copies of everything. Of course you would also probably need to test at least a couple samples of each every 6 months or so if you want to be safe.

As I understand it hard drives have a slightly different problem in theory. Supposedly it's not good for the lubricant used for the spindles if they don't spin up regularly. Having said that, I've had hard drives sit for a couple years and then go back into full time use without any problem. I don't think I've ever put one away that was working and then have it fail when I took it back out.

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