Storage Solutions Ultimate debate over storage media : Hard disk vs DVD-R

N

neomustdie

Adept
Okie, now that i and most of us have unlimited connection with minimum 256 kbps (i have a 512 unlimited), its obvious that we start to feel short of media.....

my problem is much more grave, with download reaching to an all time high of 4 Gb per day, and hopefully network not been down of average of less than 5 days a month, i can download a whooping 100 GB of data a month. But the problem is storage..... How to do it...

I earlier started to store on my HDD, then moved to CDs when DVD were rare, and now to DVD-R, and even those are insufficient...... especially with High Def movies and dual layer DVD still too costly... Now want to decide on whether to buy HDD or DVD

HDD
1. Easy to access
2. Easy to Organize
3. 320 gb for 3600 roughly 11.25 Rs/gb
4. Most problematic part, once a hdd crashes, almost all the data is lost

DVD
1. Hard to organize, although i have a huge organized collection of movies and documentaries arranged using WHEREISIT and MOVIEMANAGER
2. With good sony DVD for 16 bucks, it come for around 4 Rs/gb
3. One DVD goes wrong, at least rest are all okie.....
4. Having duplicate DVD as back is good idea with 8 Rs/gb, but only an idiot will try to do that, as arranging a collections is already a mess, and to add another thing to it.... foolishness...

So guys, please come up with your suggestions, so that i can decide on the most favorable media to select for storage... also please mention how you store the data you have....

Let the debate begin....
 
clone among multiple hdds, and have multiple backups on dvds if possible and tape as a last resort
 
i guess there is no right answer to this question.....as you pointed out hdd's or dvd's both have their pro's n con's....

so it depends upon what kinda storage you are comfortable with or which gives you a feel good factor....coz i think utimately dvd's or hdd's will fail....

i have never been good at managing or preserving optical media....its always the hdd's me!!
 
do what i do , i know tedious but worth it IMO .

1 . Sony media is crap ( IMO) get mitsu or verbs or ty if you love your movies burn them on it.

2. buy a 500 ( n not 320's) gb HDD - every - 5 months roughly if thats the speed you go at :)

i feel you look at how much you love your data and look at the risk involved . if you handle ur dvds with utmost care dont let others use it and stuff have them on it but remember even then u lose some amt of quality with time . else i feel hdd is a good place to have ur data on
 
DVD .... HDD is good .. but very risky over time. I keep double backup .. organized with WhereISIT and DVD number.

Last thing I am looking is a robotic arm or system ( mainframe tape management has) who will pop me up a specific number DVD when I asked for :) crazy nah ?
 
I lost my trust in optical media long back :p
I just keep buying HDDs and all my music and other important stuff is backed up on a separate HDD which is offline :p
 
Major problem with DVDs are the speed and the clutter caused due to having so many of them to track. I get fed up just waiting for my offline HDD to backup using USB. I can imagine backing up on DVD to be quite tedious.

I bought a DVD writer last year and I don't have a single blank DVD of my own to date. I used to backup on CDs before and I got so fed up that I haven't even bought any DVDs.

HDD in eSATA casing v/s USB might be a better option as backing up would be twice as fast. But there is no perfect and inexpensive solution. HDDs are still way too costly and 3.5 inchers are unwieldy and a headache to store around the house too.

I don't know why HDD manufacturers don't realize that there is a huge market for home users who want more than 320GB and are willing to buy multiple HDDs at lower cost.

Oh and about security, well optical media are more secure because you can't accidentally delete your files easily and they store much less. Also, a scratch does not mean that all your data is lost. With HDDs however, data loss is gi-normous and trust me, you don't wanna be downloading 300 gigs again. Go for 160X2 or 320X2 but always backup your HDD data.
 
I think .. we will wait for Blue Ray .. drives and discs are already on market ..just wait and watch .. how soon the price comes down ..

HDD guys .. keep storing in HDD .. Blue Ray is coming ! DVD guys .. be prepared to make another set of backup on Blue Ray !
 
for me.. i would go for another 500GIG hdd. its pain to write 100GB data in a month on many dvds.. it would take lots of your time.. its like writing minimum 25 dvd's in a month and each dvd will take atleast 10 mins (max) so its like wasting 250 mins over a month and i.e. like 4 hours. Time for composing a DVD extra ;)
 
You guys are going about it the wrong way. Using DVDs for backups is ok, but its unacceptable if you want the data to be online at all times. Its true that hard disk can crash, but thats why we have redundancy.

Anyways, having so many hdds with multiple TBs of data in your main PC is not a smart idea. Multiple hdds need more power, create more heat and noise, hence in your main rig, they'll be competing with your oc'ed cpu, and uber gfx cards. You need to think long term, and go for a dedicated media server. This will be a separate machine altogether, connected via cat6. You can go on dumping hdds in this, and add as many high speed fans as needed, w/o worrying about noise ( as this machine can be hidden inside your closer :)) There are various ways you can approach this:-

1. Plain PC, running windows (or linux).
Pros- Easiest to set up. Add hdds when needed. Mix hdds of diff sizes, as well as pata/sata/ usb etc.
Cons - No redundancy. No increased transfer rates.

2. Raid-5.
This can be implemented either thru the motherboard raid chip, or a dedicated raid card.
Pros - Raid-5 offers redundancy for one drive failure. Raid-6 for two. Increased transfer rates.
Cons. - All hdds need to be of the same size. In raid-5, if more than one hdd fails, then the whole array is toast. If your mobo raid chip develops a problem, you need to change whole mobo. H/W raid cards are very expensive.

3. Windows Home Server.
Pros - Extremely easy to setup and use. Mix and match hdds of different sizes and different types. If more than one HDD fails, the data on other disks is still safe.
Cons - Redundancy is through raid-1, which means you you get to use only half the space on your HDDs.
And finally, my favourite
4. unRaid Server.
unRaid is a data backup and media server solution from Lime Technologies. It consists of a linux derivative, which runs off an USB pen drive :hap2: The free version supports 3 hdds, while the pro version supports 12 ( next version will support 16). Of these, one hdd is used for parity, while the other are simple data disks. You can mix sata and pata drives of any size. Only restriction is that the parity disk should be the largest.

Pros- Mix drives of any size (Even those 40gb hdds lying around can be used :p). The redundancy offered is the best! If one hdd fails, its data can be recovered. If more than one fails, than data on remaining disks is still secure. If parity disk fails, just add a new hdd and calculate parity again. You can create shares which span across drives e.g. Movies, Music. Pictures, etc. So you don't have to browse thru multiple drives to find what you're looking for.
Biggest advantage - Disks can be spun down after an hour of inactivity.

Cons - All hdds are formated to raiserFS and wiped clean. Hence, you can't add your current disks, which are already filled to the brim. Since data is not striped, transfer rates are limited to single drive speeds. Drives have to be populated via lan. This means that filling up a 2TB server is going to take the better part of a weekend. After that, calculating parity for the 1st time is also a lengthy process.
Thankfully, this is a one time process, and worth the time spent.
unRaid Pro Server costs around $119. It'll probably end up being the one software that I buy with my own money :hap2:
 
^^zhopudey : nicely described......but then it involves of to much to do......
im sure most of us want the simplest and the fastest means of data backup.......ur solutions are excellent for a "realtime" update.........a hdd with a external casing is just fine if u dont want "realtime" updates to take place and as u mentioned u dont want it to be online/ in the cabinet at all time....also liked the idea of a seperate media backup server...however its not a basic home solution everyone can fall upon. not negating ur thoughts and comments or arguing here...just pressing a point....
 
i already have a setup like this . one main pc with 2*36gb for day to day stuff, where all the bittorrenting goes on and a slave pc with all the large capacity hdds networked to it. only time slave pc gets turned on is when i xfer stuff from download pc to it :D

regarding home server, i tried it out and it was pretty interesting but it wanted to format my drives before i could add it to the storage pool and thats when i got rid of it.
 
Well, if a dedicated media server seems too much pain, then the next best solution is to use motherboards and hdds which support hot swapping :eek:hyeah:
 
Also I guess it is important about "wat" u want to store and backup........

1) backups of "work" related stuff is difficult to maintain on a DVD and risky if u loose or misplace the DVD for someoneelse to access considering it has ur personal documents like banking details etc etc...

2) movies , music can b burned on a dvd media , however they arent too secure as well...one scratch from ur friendly neighbourhood buddies can render it useless and to loose data on it. However data / music / movies can always be recovered by "re-downloading" only that amount of stuff that is lost.

3) Many Synchronising softwares are available that easily synchorise / take backup of the stuff easily.

4) Using a same capacity harddrive if u want ur entire hdd and everything on it to be absolutely safe...u can "image" it up over the weekend on another drive...<time consuming> i agree.

5) Also it depends on portability....dvd's would be easy to carry around....in case u want a backup of ur stuff on ur move....i mean...u wouldnt carry a 500-750 gig hdd with the casing and everything and ALL ur data for something u would like to refer to incase of data loss.

All in all i feel its upto a user.....
what is the data >?
his flexibility of what he likes>?
for wat purpose is the backup taken...

:peace:
 
zhopudey said:
Multiple hdds need more power, create more heat and noise, hence in your main rig, they'll be competing with your oc'ed cpu, and uber gfx cards.
Click to expand...

This was my concern when deciding to use HDDs in RAID 1. The 2nd HDD would eat power and be of no use. Also, having the data offline offers the advantage that if the system goes kaput due to some freakish power surge or something like that, my data would still be safe. So, with an online, offline setup, you have your data available at all times with no excess power consumption and protection from electrical failure. Only problem is the slow weekly/monthly backup or sync up.
 
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