Since everyone hates on physical media I don't know where to put this post. What do you think is the better option to store my data ? I have a massive movie library and I have to move it out of my PC. My personal photos and movies I keap on M-Disc DVD's but if I wanted to put my entire library of movies on M-Disc it would cost me insane ammount of money. I also have bad experience with data archive on HDD because I lost irreversably a lot of my data that way.
So my question is: What is the best way to store my data ? HDD, BD-R, BD-R DL. If BD-R DL is good option what brand would you propose. I want my data to be safe for at least 25 years. There are some cheap BDR's from omega and mediarange but when you buy something cheap you usualy sacrefice quality. On the other hand Sony and Panasonic discs are expensive and still what is the guarantee that this discs will last that long if there is no BD that old to verify.
That's a lot of questions but I hope that there are still pepole like me who still use optical discs to help me. Thx in advance.
Ps. I have LG BH16NS40 M-Disc,DVD and Blu-Ray burner so it's pretty much as good as it gets IMHO.
It may seam silly at first but think about it. Most of us no longer print our photos anymore. If the photo is printed it can last for decades. HDD is not so trustworthy storage. Movies may be not so important but still having your favourite movies for years to acces is nice. As for VHS I still do have some working tapes and VHS player but in the tamie of HD it's useless :-).
Ps. I can't understand why pepole are so nagative about physical media. Server dies and you have no longer acces to your games or movies or even cloud data. If it's all on decent BD you have it safe to acces anytime. Besides I have a big game library for both consoles and PC in physical format and I still prefer BOX version of a game rather than download. Currrent DRM like Steam maybe kill some of the point for keeping physical media but it still has a collectors value (and I do have many collectors edition goodies lying around my shelves). Physical media for ever !
+1 to royce321, I used to store my data on optical discs, but they degrade WAY WAY faster than a HDD and I've lost a lot of data due to it and this is keeping the discs out of sunlight etc etc.
Buy a 2TB external drive back it up and store it in a safe place
My experience is totaly opposite. HDD let me down and CD's from the same period of time are mostly readable (that's how I recover at least some of my data). Blu-Ray disc should be more resistant to data loss due to semi-mineral dye as oppose to organic dye on DVD's and CD's. On the other hand M-Disc have mineral dye so it's very resistant but you have to have a strong laser in your burner.
Maybe HDD is a good choice as long I you have other copies of that data (or at least some of it) on othr form of storage or on just another HDD. So what HDD do you propose for data archive. Dont have to be fast. Only reliable.
Ok guys. I did some research and HDD's is not an option. Long term HDD storing cause demagnetize and motor and bearing deamage. Keaping them spinning in a PC is also a bad idea because they wear out pretty quickly. The only way to keap my data safe is to have a multiple copies across many media and upgrade them to newer as the time gose on. So the bottom line is: I'm gonna stick to M-Disc I just start to record on BD-R and keap copy of the same data on my other PC and my cloud storage. it's gona be expensive so I have to make a selection to pick only the best files and throw out all the crap.
Ps. If you still have some sugestions I'm still open to new ideas but after I read so much about it I'm pretty shure that there is simply no good way to store files so you have to use many at once and hope that at least one does the job right till you rewrite them to newer type of drive.