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Time to Purchase a DVD-R?
Evanrude asks: "With DVD writers having significantly come down in price over the past year more companies are coming out with their version of the DVD-R. My company has a large file archive of documents and data that don't necessarily need to be stored on read/write media, but need to be kept online. I want to accomplish this with online DVD storage but is this the right way to go? Who has the best value with the most features of all the DVD-R's on the market? What are some things to look for and things to avoid when purchasing a DVD-R? Is it even time to purchase one, or should I wait another six months?"
I bought a CDR right when it came out and after around 3 weeks of playing around I stopped using it. Unless you have a real need, a bunch of cash you're looking to burn (in which case I have a nice dot-com I'd like you to invest in), or you're going to be renting a bunch of movies from Blockbuster and ripping them, don't bother wasting the money. They may seem cheap now but they'll drop a lot after New Years.
You'd have to have a fairly large jukebox system before it would begin to be cost-competitive with hard drive storage, wouldn't you? How much data are we talking about here?
I've been thinking of getting a dvd writer drive as well, but decided to wait. Mainly because there's too many differences in the writers, there's dvd-r, dvd+rw, dvd-rw and so on... I donno, maybe some of those are the same format. I read a couple articles about how certain types are better than others and how one was supposed to have support for just read only (currently it's rw), then backed out of that, and so on.
So I think it'd be better to wait till they got a format that was agreed upon by all. Otherwise it reminds me too much of the k56flex vs. X2.
Besides, the longer you wait, the more favorable the price will be...
Question everything that you've accepted without thinking.
Why mess with DVD-Anything for online storage?
I just picked up a few 120GB disks for $110/each. That will hold a lot of DVD's worth of Data. If the data needs to be kept on-line, HD's are much faster than any DVD drive. You'll also need another DVD drive for each 5-10GB of data, if using DVD's. So, the HD solution is much cheaper too.
DVD's are fine for backing up that data, but for real-time access, they are not ideal.
DVD burners will go the same way as CD burners. There may be a bit more competition over formats (since it's a lot more obvious how much of a cash cow DVD burning is going to be for corporations), but eventually they will become fairly inexpensive. Give it at least six more months, if not a year or so, before you consider making DVD burners part of your company's storage strategy.
As someone once said, that's the great thing about standards, there are so many of them. You might want to wait and let the dust settle rather than risk a heavy investment in a possible orphan format. Already HP and a couple of other makers are weasling on drives that were supposed to be software upgradeable to record more than one DVD-R or RW format, but it turns out it's not going to be that simple and the hardware will have to be replaced.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I have had problems with corrupted media. Must have been BIT ROT. I wouldnt say DVDRs are a stable storage medium yet. If you want to store non-critical data, maybe they are ok, but every once in a while expect to have a disk go bad and be unreadable for no reason. At least I do any way. Maybe this was a while ago and they have become more reliable by now.....
"Should I by a piece of computer equipment now or wait another 6 months?"
Honestly know:
What kind of answer do you expect on a question like that? In other words: A friend of mine has a saying: "The sky is blue, computers get cheaper." If a DVD-R is worth the money for you now, you need it and can afford it - then buy it. If not, don't. It's that simple.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I agree about using hard disks for the most part, but there are DVD changers that hold several hundred disks, did you really think he was going to buy hundreds of 5 1/4 inch DVD drives, one per disk?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
DVD+RW is technically not even a DVD format. Technically, it can't even be called "DVD". It can't even use the familiar DVD logo. Only formats approved by DVD Forum (DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW) can technically use the name DVD and the DVD logo. DVD+RW is more appropriately referred to as "the +RW format". It's bad enough they're confusing the marketplace by having two formats with the same exact name with only a non-alphanumeric character being different between the two.
All that said, yes, all the big Wintel companies will probably successfully force DVD+RW on the marketplace, and eventually win out. You're sold yourself: referring to +RW as "3rd generation" (it's not) and "newer" (which it is, but you're using it to imply "better" or "more mature", which it's not). +RW is a COMPETITOR to DVD-RW, not a generation ahead of it. DVD-RW is the accepted DVD Forum standard, but apparently the Wintel crowd just couldn't stand Apple being first[1] to the table with a new technology again.
[1] As in, the first big player to mainstream it, akin to 802.11 with AirPort.
For data storage, this will be a godsend - and the prospect of a 1080i high-defintion movie on a single disk has me salivating.
The problem with the format, as I see it, is twofold:
- When can it be introduced? HD-DVDs for data can't be introduced soon enough - but the entertainment companies will logically want to wait until "standard" DVDs thoroughly saturate the market before introducing HD-DVD.
- Will the MPAA and its ilk keep their hands off it? With a good projector, screen and viewing environment 1080i will be within spitting distance of a true theatrical experience. Naturally, the MPAA will be terrified of this experience being compromised, and at the prospect of HD films being distributed on the web (on the other hand, the sheer file size of HD movie files might preclude that - I don't see cable companies increasing their user bandwidths anytime soon.)
When can it be expected? Most bets are on 2004 / 2005. Maybe they'll learn from the DVD-R / DVD+RW / DVD-RAM fiasco to stick to a common read-write standard, tho I wouldn't put money on it. If they do decide to fight, it might be 2006 before the standard is settled - which is a real long wait, in computer terms.Anyway, my $0.01 (the Canadian exchange rate sucks)
"Don't critisize. Create a better alternative."
> why don't you guys just buy a few HDs?
Great idea. All they'd need then is some sort of terabyte backup system. Do you recommend CDs, DVDs or tape?
This keeps coming up again and again. No matter how cheap HDs get, they just don't have the durability, portability, or lifetime of "real" offline storage. Sadly, backup technology just isn't keeping up with HD capacities. When >1GB drives first came out, you could get 20GB tapes. Now that we've got 100GB drives, the world needs a TB archive media.
Drinking will help us plan!
With the Pioneer A03 and A04, you can --
(1) make DVD's that play on your settop box
(2) burn 4450 megs of file onto a platter.
What more do you need? I love my A03.
Lastly, as to 20 year old harddrives being incompatible with today's, yes that is true. But you have no crystal ball, and you can't say that today's HDDs will be inaccessible in 20 years, nor can you be sure that CD and DVD will continue to be familiar formats. Besides, if the data is important enough to be kept around, chances are the hardware to access it will be too (or haven't you seen machine rooms that still use tape backups from X years ago?)
Could you make your question more precise ?:
- what data do you want to store (video, databases, images...)
- what do you use it for ? Which client programs (and, in which OS ) need the data ? Which OS do the server run on ?
- what is the amount of data you need to store ? (to start with, and periodic updates thereafter)
- how long to you need to archive it ?
- what is the access pattern (frequent access to all and any data, just in case the Hd fails, if we have an audit...). Derived question: do you want full automatic acces to your backups, or is a long delay or even Restore operation OK ?
- is what you are looking for part of a multi-tier data system, or just a plain backup system ?
- what is your budget ?
- what human ressources do you have, both in terms of time and competence ?
- if you're investigating DVD, what is your take on the more classic media (HD, Tape, CD) ? What do you see are their strong and weak points ?
Best regards, Olivier
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Leave it to someone to post a question like this after I've already made the decision to buy the technology in question. Although I won't get my Pioneer DVR-104 until later this week, I've already done my homework on the subject. I wanted a DVD-storage solution to backup lots and lots of TV shows that I have gathered/recorded over the past few months. Realizing that my 20GB+ of DivX videos was going to take a LOT of CD-R's, I decided that 4.7GB of storage per disc was the way to archive. That, and my set-top JVC player understands the DVD-R and DVD-RW if I want to make my own video disks (and yes, I meant to say -R and -RW, not +R/+RW, and I don't want to get into that discussion--I've already read up on that flame war).
Anyway, the Pioneer drive is supposedly the top of the line, consumer version of the A04 (for general use DVD-R disks)--and it also burns CD-R's at 8x, so you get a 2-in-1 drive if you don't already have a CD-R burner. I also looked at the prices of the media, which have drastically dropped in price, down to about $2 a disk. Now, is this all worth it? I don't know--if enough ppl ask, I may post a review with this comment after I get my drive this week. In the meantime, I will say that I ordered my drive for $275 using PriceWatch.com as my guide. I remember getting my SCSI Yamaha 4x CD-R burner for almost $400, and spending $2-3 for the media, which was only about 3-4 years ago. I know I've been an early adopter, but I think DVD is the way to go for a lot of people--just give it some thought as to whether it's for you or not.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
You might also say Sony, but Sony only cares about not paying as much in royalties and they have their whole video/audio sections as well just like Philips.
Actually, Philips sold its entertainment-industry holdings to Polygram, so unlike Sony, it's not torn between selling CD burners and selling uncopyable CDs. Philips does hold patents on key CD and DVD technologies, along with the trademark on "Compact Disc".
Will I retire or break 10K?
That's it. Forget this... I'm not going to bother with any (re)writable DVD[+-]* formats. I'm going to just stick with CD-R until I can find either the 27G capacity blue-laser discs announced recently here, or the flourescent multilayer discs which have been (slowly) coming along and should be due any time now, or something else...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
$500 US for 8 drives worth of IDE controller capacity? That seems pretty high; a pair of Promise UDMA133 controllers (2 ch = 4 drive ea.) would set me back 150$ US total at the local corporate-office mart. And consider also that motherboards typically have 4-6 drives of capacity to start with, which should take care of other IDE peripherals and then some; you may not need more than one additional controller.
Keep in mind that you need a computer system to connect the storage to either way; but interfacing would be really affordable with the model of jukebox you suggest, since it uses firewire (IEEE-1394). (I had sort of assumed that any high capacity changers would use FC or SCSI, requiring a significant chunk of cash for the interface, but apparently they don't.)
Also, any decent full tower case should be able to handle 8 3+1/2" standard height drives. (The fact that the majority of the world banishes themselves to bad mid or mini tower cases doesn't mean that everyone has to). My cheap-assed A/Open ATX full tower has 5 internal 3+1/2" bays (3 front, 2 rear), so I'd have to convert 3 of the 5+1/4" bays to hold the remaining hds, but there would still be 2 5+1/4"s and a 3+1/2" external left. Yes, this is quite a stretch, because my case isn't suited for the crapload of cooling you would need for all of those drives. Also the power supply would need to be fairly high capacity, as it might be difficult to stagger the drive spinups to avoid power problems without using SCSI. But it still shouldn't require especially rare/expensive casing, PS, or ATA controllerage.
I don't see why you're bringing RAID (especially hardware RAID -- very expensive and unnecessary when high throughput isn't crucial) into the equation. The jukebox wouldn't do mirrored reading in the RAID sense, because it only reads one disc at a time. And, although especially capabale bundled media jukebox software may prove me wrong, I doubt that it could automatically switch to an online backup disc when encountering a read error. So you would probably just keep the mirror set offline on the shelf to reclaim the jukebox capacity. The equivalent HD solution would have backup tapes on the shelf too. (the Jukebox may have less repair downtime, more than software RAID's none, but more cost competitive also.)
more later...