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These "AHD" discs are nice and small, 70% the size of DVDs, at 100x the projected capacity of even the new DMDs, which are 142x the size:info of AHDs. But they cost 180x the 1TiB DMDs (at $45:$0.25), for only 56% the cost:capacity. Crank up a 200-DVD changer capacity to 15x200=3TB with the new 15GB DMDs. Once they get to 1TiB multilayer discs for $0.25, like DVD-R, we're talking about a full 200TiB changer for $3500, $17:TiB. If you record 5.1 channel, 16bit, 48KHz surround sound, and panoramic stereo views as 8Kpxl * 6Kpxl (double the frequency of your retinal sensors) 32bit * 60fps (at you, and from your own eyes = *4), and 100MiBps for medical telemetry plus URL consumption metadata, that's 43GiBps.That's 24s:TiB; 80 years would fit in 100EiB (exabytes, 2^60B), or 0.1ZiB (zettabytes!). You'd store 80m (minus sleeptime, maybe 2h) in a single carousel, a week in a bookcase, and a lifetime lining the walls of your house (1200' of 6' bookcases). And the 100EiB DVD system would cost $30M, while a 100EiB AHD system would cost $54M (down to $300K with $0.25 AHDs), and fit along one 8' wall. Finally, a return to utility for mausoleums!

A DVD-R jukebox can give you 200 DVDs at once. That's $3600 (drive/changer) + $268 (1000 DVD-Rs), for (1000*4.7GB) 4.7TB@$4000, or $1.18:GB. That's almost double your HD cost, but you'd need at least another host PC, and multiple controllers for the 16HD RAID, which is probably another $1000. And another $268 buys you another 4-5 months storage, so by next April you're down to $0.14:GB; in a year you're at $0.12:GB. A shelf of 200-disc "CD" books will hold your archives, 1 book per carousel for "fast" retrieval. Backup all your DVDs offsite at $0.27:GB. As DVD-R prices fall over time, you're probably looking at something like $0.05:GB, probably less than even plummeting HD prices. And the DVDs (especially with the cheap backups) are much more reliable, especially over 10 years, than the HDs. If you are looking at 10 year archive, at $80:month in DVDs, for 29% more money you can add a second host PC/changer set, left in their boxes, in case the original PC/changers fail.

Check out PowerFile for a good large size long term backup option.

Pros:

* Gold CD-Rs have a shelf life of several decades so a PowerFile full of gold CD-Rs would give you 160GB of storage that would last longer than you live. I'm not sure what the shelf life of DVD-Rs are but if it's at least ten years, then you can have close to a terabyte of storage.
* You can populate the slots as you need them. Start with 50 DVD-Rs and then add more when your data needs increase.
* The data stays "online" so you can still access it (unlike with tape) so you can free up some hard drive space by moving stuff you access infrequently
* If you use CD-RW or DVD-RW discs then you can perform an incremental backup and save some time

Cons:

* More expensive than they should be...a Sony 300 disc DVD/CD changer only costs $700 yet as soon as you connect anything to a computer it is suddenly a couple grand more
* Slow, obviously since it has to spin to the correct disc to access it. However, for sequential operations like backing up (writing one disk after the next) it should work fine.
* Software sucks...they actually have the gall to charge extra for the drivers that you access the drive over a network. I'm not sure exactly how but basically you can't change the disc over the network unless you pay extra

What I would dearly love to see is someone like Linksys make a cheapo version of this, but instead of designing it as a stupid fireware component, toss in their little linux flash computer and make it networkable from the start.

OR...maybe someone smart out there can figure out a way to make one of those home theater changers into an ATAPI device that I can wire in directly to my computer, or said linux flash computer.

Is anyone aware of anything close to these PowerFile things, only at a level that is more in line with what they actually are (just a DVD drive with a little robotics to insert and eject discs into a carosel).

- JoeShmoe

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It depends how frequently you used the CDs. Also, if you're toting them around to different computers on the same netowork, or you need constant access to many different CDs, check out: dvdchanger.com these 200 disk CD/DVD changers range from $1000 to $6000. The things are REALLY cool, go check out the specs (anyone know how to build your own?)

If you're wooking for a CD wallet sorta thing, check out: Case Logic Nylon Case We use these at my work, we have well over 1000 CDs stored in these things. They work beautifully.

Combine:

A carousel that holds 200-300 CDs or DVDs (just like they have for home theaters for around $800)

Sort of like the stuff PowerFile makes. (http://www.dvdchanger.com)

Add to it room for at least two slot-load drives (although four would be even better, one in each corner) so you can access at least two CDs at any given time.

Throw in a Linux thinserver (like the stuff Linksys or any number of companies use) to manange the contents of each CD/DVD.

Result? Over 1TB of storage for around $1000. The only catch is that it is not meant for more than a handful of users at a time.

But considering what an equivalent RAID would cost it doesn't seem like a bad idea. You could put every file you've ever downloaded into one box and each CD/DVD could show up as a separate directory on one master volume. Imagine that. Near-instant access to TB of info.

If you use DVD-ROM drives, it's 1TB of read-only storage but if you use DVD-R/RW/RAM drives then it is 1TV of read/write storage! Wow, you could open your own Avalon!

Please please someone start a project to help build something like this! I desperately want one but the crappy PowerFile version is junk because it relies on crappy Windows/Mac software and ties up a whole computers just to access the damn thing. Plus having to manually mount/unmount the discs like individual drives instead of having just one volume.

- JoeShmoe

Escient makes one.

Well, there's always the multi-cd changers, PowerFile makes one for data CDs and DVDs, and there is always buying masive hardrives, and archiveing all your CD's as MP3s (I recomend 160kbps MINIMUM)

http://www.dvdchanger.com/ 200 CD/DVD-ROM jukebox, firewire, yum. Ohh, and maybe firewire and DVD movie support for linux.
And Bill's head, on a stick, shellaced.