I'm looking at my options for archiving what will eventually become 200+ GB of data.
Right now I use an external USB hard drive.
I checked out the Iomega RV and the Tandberg/HP whatever RDX drives. Since Iomega seems to have an issue with reliability the RDX seems like the better choice.
However, those cartridges seem to be merely a 2.5" laptop hard drive enclosed in a huge cartridge.
What's the difference between what I'm doing now and getting an RDX drive? It seems the RDX is overpriced comparing it to various 2.5" USB/Firewire/eSATA enclosures.
<jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
> I'm looking at my options for archiving what will eventually become 200+ > GB of data. Right now I use an external USB hard drive.
> I checked out the Iomega RV and the Tandberg/HP whatever RDX drives. > Since Iomega seems to have an issue with reliability the RDX seems like > the better choice.
> However, those cartridges seem to be merely a 2.5" laptop hard drive > enclosed in a huge cartridge.
> What's the difference between what I'm doing now and getting an RDX > drive? It seems the RDX is overpriced comparing it to various 2.5" > USB/Firewire/eSATA enclosures.
NOTHING lasts forever. For long-term archiving, the rate of change within
the computer technology means that no matter what option you choose, you
WILL have to keep updating it to a new media / format / connection
technology. For example, try finding:
- something to read Amiga floppy disks,
- a Zip drive or Zip disk,
- an external box for a SCSI hard drive,
- etc.
For the more medium-term archiving, you're probably best to stick with
hard drives or DVD-R discs. You can get external cases that allow you to
plug an older connection drive to a newer system, and DVD discs can be
read by DVD drive and Blu-ray drives (and 3D drives if they ever become
popular for computers).
Plus, you also have to keep an eye on the data and media formatting before
throwing out or losing your older equipment to breakdowns. For example,
can the new computer you're about to buy still understand JPEG images and
read HFS formatted drives?
In many ways, long-term archiving is STILL best done by paper-based
solutions (although that's obviously no good for data like movies).
> In article<jgpttq$rt...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> <jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
>> I'm looking at my options for archiving what will eventually become 200+
>> GB of data. Right now I use an external USB hard drive.
>> I checked out the Iomega RV and the Tandberg/HP whatever RDX drives.
>> Since Iomega seems to have an issue with reliability the RDX seems like
>> the better choice.
>> However, those cartridges seem to be merely a 2.5" laptop hard drive
>> enclosed in a huge cartridge.
>> What's the difference between what I'm doing now and getting an RDX
>> drive? It seems the RDX is overpriced comparing it to various 2.5"
>> USB/Firewire/eSATA enclosures.
> NOTHING lasts forever. For long-term archiving, the rate of change within
> the computer technology means that no matter what option you choose, you
> WILL have to keep updating it to a new media / format / connection
> technology. For example, try finding:
> - something to read Amiga floppy disks,
> - a Zip drive or Zip disk,
> - an external box for a SCSI hard drive,
> - etc.
and that's fine; I don't have a problem with that. I used to archive on CD-R's from the late 1990's to around 2004 when MiniDV started getting popular.
> For the more medium-term archiving, you're probably best to stick with
> hard drives or DVD-R discs. You can get external cases that allow you to
> plug an older connection drive to a newer system, and DVD discs can be
> read by DVD drive and Blu-ray drives (and 3D drives if they ever become
> popular for computers).
Blu-ray is what I'll use for footage that I want played. I don't believe in archiving video footage on BR because there's always a quality loss.
The MiniDV and HDV tapes are in a box - secured. I'm not worried about them. But the AVCHD footage is sitting on a hard drive. I used iMovie's Archive feature to save the footage in its original form.
If I transcode it to BR - there's going to be a conversion and thus a loss.
> Plus, you also have to keep an eye on the data and media formatting before
> throwing out or losing your older equipment to breakdowns. For example,
> can the new computer you're about to buy still understand JPEG images and
> read HFS formatted drives?
I doubt I'll ever get to the point where the hardware becomes "legacy." I'll keep updating onto new media, and new forms of media as time goes on.
But in the meantime.... It seems as if I keep coming back to external hard drives for long term storage.
<jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
> On 2/7/12 12:49 AM, Helpful Harry wrote:
> > In article<jgpttq$rt...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> > For the more medium-term archiving, you're probably best to stick with
> > hard drives or DVD-R discs. You can get external cases that allow you to
> > plug an older connection drive to a newer system, and DVD discs can be
> > read by DVD drive and Blu-ray drives (and 3D drives if they ever become
> > popular for computers).
> Blu-ray is what I'll use for footage that I want played. I don't > believe in archiving video footage on BR because there's always a > quality loss.
> The MiniDV and HDV tapes are in a box - secured. I'm not worried about > them. But the AVCHD footage is sitting on a hard drive. I used > iMovie's Archive feature to save the footage in its original form.
> If I transcode it to BR - there's going to be a conversion and thus a > loss.
You don't have to convert the movie files to a Blu-ray playable format.
Just like a CD-R disc, you can use Blu-ray discs to store normal data
files (25GB, 50GB or 100GB, depending on how many layers the disc has) ...
assuming you can get the drivers and software to write such a disc, which
I haven't looked into.
> > Plus, you also have to keep an eye on the data and media formatting before
> > throwing out or losing your older equipment to breakdowns. For example,
> > can the new computer you're about to buy still understand JPEG images and
> > read HFS formatted drives?
> I doubt I'll ever get to the point where the hardware becomes "legacy." > I'll keep updating onto new media, and new forms of media as time goes on.
> But in the meantime.... It seems as if I keep coming back to external > hard drives for long term storage.
Even hard drives are really just a medium term storage media. Eventually
the connection system won't be supported by newer hardware and / or the
drives formatting won't be recognised by the newer operating system
software. (As per my previous examples, try finding an external case that
supports a SCSI hard drive or anything to read Amiga formatted disks.)
> In article<jgql2h$i7...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> <jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
>> On 2/7/12 12:49 AM, Helpful Harry wrote:
>>> In article<jgpttq$rt...@dont-email.me>, Justin
>>> For the more medium-term archiving, you're probably best to stick with
>>> hard drives or DVD-R discs. You can get external cases that allow you to
>>> plug an older connection drive to a newer system, and DVD discs can be
>>> read by DVD drive and Blu-ray drives (and 3D drives if they ever become
>>> popular for computers).
>> Blu-ray is what I'll use for footage that I want played. I don't
>> believe in archiving video footage on BR because there's always a
>> quality loss.
>> The MiniDV and HDV tapes are in a box - secured. I'm not worried about
>> them. But the AVCHD footage is sitting on a hard drive. I used
>> iMovie's Archive feature to save the footage in its original form.
>> If I transcode it to BR - there's going to be a conversion and thus a
>> loss.
> You don't have to convert the movie files to a Blu-ray playable format.
> Just like a CD-R disc, you can use Blu-ray discs to store normal data
> files (25GB, 50GB or 100GB, depending on how many layers the disc has) ...
> assuming you can get the drivers and software to write such a disc, which
> I haven't looked into.
I now understand.
I thought you meant encode to BR, but you meant just put the data files on the BR-R.
Not a bad idea. I could use each disc for a separate event. Hopefully each individual event won't go over 25 to 50GB.
> Even hard drives are really just a medium term storage media. Eventually
> the connection system won't be supported by newer hardware and / or the
> drives formatting won't be recognised by the newer operating system
> software. (As per my previous examples, try finding an external case that
> supports a SCSI hard drive or anything to read Amiga formatted disks.)
I understand. It's hard enough to find 5.25" drives these days. OSX supports burning in UDF, ISO-9660 (Joliet) so any future OS should be able to read it.
Your Amiga example makes sense, but today there are standard filesystem formats designed to cross platforms.
Helpful Harry <HelpfulHa...@BusyWorking.com> wrote:
> In article <jgql2h$i7...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> <jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
> > On 2/7/12 12:49 AM, Helpful Harry wrote:
> > > In article<jgpttq$rt...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> > > For the more medium-term archiving, you're probably best to stick with
> > > hard drives or DVD-R discs. You can get external cases that allow you to
> > > plug an older connection drive to a newer system, and DVD discs can be
> > > read by DVD drive and Blu-ray drives (and 3D drives if they ever become
> > > popular for computers).
> > Blu-ray is what I'll use for footage that I want played. I don't > > believe in archiving video footage on BR because there's always a > > quality loss.
> > The MiniDV and HDV tapes are in a box - secured. I'm not worried about
> > them. But the AVCHD footage is sitting on a hard drive. I used > > iMovie's Archive feature to save the footage in its original form.
> > If I transcode it to BR - there's going to be a conversion and thus a
> > loss.
> You don't have to convert the movie files to a Blu-ray playable format.
> Just like a CD-R disc, you can use Blu-ray discs to store normal data
> files (25GB, 50GB or 100GB, depending on how many layers the disc has) ...
> assuming you can get the drivers and software to write such a disc, which
> I haven't looked into.
I recently bought an external Blu-ray writer (from Other World
Computing: I have a Pioneer mechanism in their generic enclosure, which
they sell separately if you want to "roll your own").
Finder in Mac OS X 10.6.8 recognises it as a Blu-ray writer and is happy
to write up to 25 GB or 50 GB to BD-R or BD-R DL media, in the same
manner as it handles a CD or DVD writer, treating it as general purpose
file storage. (My drive mechanism doesn't support quad layer, but I
could replace the mechanism later if that turns out to be a limitation.
I doubt the media would be cost effective.)
I haven't burned a BD-R in it yet, so I don't know what file system
Finder would use. I tend to use Toast for burning discs so I have more
control over the end result.
Toast 9 (or later) also recognises my drive, and can use it for general
data storage or write a standard BD-Video disc (with transcoding if
required), which I haven't tried yet. I have the Toast HD Blu-ray
plugin, which I think is required for BD-Video writing, but may not be
necessary for using BD-R as a data disc.
> > Even hard drives are really just a medium term storage media. Eventually
> > the connection system won't be supported by newer hardware and / or the
> > drives formatting won't be recognised by the newer operating system
> > software. (As per my previous examples, try finding an external case that
> > supports a SCSI hard drive or anything to read Amiga formatted disks.)
> I understand. It's hard enough to find 5.25" drives these days. OSX > supports burning in UDF, ISO-9660 (Joliet) so any future OS should be > able to read it.
> Your Amiga example makes sense, but today there are standard filesystem > formats designed to cross platforms.
The problem is that, like everything else, file systems are constantly
changing. A future generation of Mac OS or Windows may not be able to read
discs formatted using HFS (for example). It really depends on how long you
want to store it, but eventually you will have to redo the archived
material onto newer storage media and newer file formats before they
become "obsolete" and you can't access them.
Then of course you're going to need backups since NO storage media is
completely reliable. Plus backups in other locations in case of fire, etc.
It can get highly expensive, so is best to keep what you REALLY need to
keep.
>> You don't have to convert the movie files to a Blu-ray playable format.
>> Just like a CD-R disc, you can use Blu-ray discs to store normal data
>> files (25GB, 50GB or 100GB, depending on how many layers the disc has) ...
>> assuming you can get the drivers and software to write such a disc, which
>> I haven't looked into.
Can it burn to UDF or Joliet filesystems on the BD?
> In article<jgs7oa$pf...@dont-email.me>, Justin
> <jus...@nobecauseireallyhatespam.edu> wrote:
>>> Even hard drives are really just a medium term storage media. Eventually
>>> the connection system won't be supported by newer hardware and / or the
>>> drives formatting won't be recognised by the newer operating system
>>> software. (As per my previous examples, try finding an external case that
>>> supports a SCSI hard drive or anything to read Amiga formatted disks.)
>> I understand. It's hard enough to find 5.25" drives these days. OSX
>> supports burning in UDF, ISO-9660 (Joliet) so any future OS should be
>> able to read it.
>> Your Amiga example makes sense, but today there are standard filesystem
>> formats designed to cross platforms.
> The problem is that, like everything else, file systems are constantly
> changing. A future generation of Mac OS or Windows may not be able to read
> discs formatted using HFS (for example). It really depends on how long you
> want to store it, but eventually you will have to redo the archived
> material onto newer storage media and newer file formats before they
> become "obsolete" and you can't access them.
That's exactly my plan. I redid all of my ole 8mm tapes to MiniDV, some of which were 15 years old.
I keep one external hard drive formatted to exFAT in my safety deposit box at the bank.
