Which Is The Best Hardware

[basjke]

I regulary download some movies or buy dvd's,especially the oscar winners and nominations from the 70's and 80's.Now I remember that I bought dvd's in the past from phantip and all the dics which were labeled "gold dvd" became unusable after 1 year or so because it seemed like the gold layer got eroded.Haven't seen this symptom recently but it makes me wonder if a dvd disc is the right medium to store a movie for the long time.

So what do you think is the best way to store this digital data so that it is still accessible after 20 years +.Will it be dvd's,harddisks or some other hardware which i don't know about.Please keep in mind the circumstances where we live.I don't have a "dry room" or oxygen sealed boxes etc I'm talking about an affordable and available medium in thailand.Thanks in advance.

Edited May 12, 2008 by basjke

[dave_boo]

I regulary download some movies or buy dvd's,especially the oscar winners and nominations from the 70's and 80's.Now I remember that I bought dvd's in the past from phantip and all the dics which were labeled "gold dvd" became unusable after 1 year or so because it seemed like the gold layer got eroded.Haven't seen this symptom recently but it makes me wonder if a dvd disc is the right medium to store a movie for the long time.

So what do you think is the best way to store this digital data so that it is still accessible after 20 years +.Will it be dvd's,harddisks or some other hardware which i don't know about.Please keep in mind the circumstances where we live.I don't have a "dry room" or oxygen sealed boxes etc I'm talking about an affordable and available medium in thailand.Thanks in advance.

Rip them to hard drives using x.264. Of course in the future if it is not supported you'll be SOL unless you use old software to display it that may not work with the operating system of your choice. Other option is to rip it as an *.iso and than mount that as needed. In the future you can always transcode them to another codec.

[basjke]

Rip them to hard drives using x.264. Of course in the future if it is not supported you'll be SOL unless you use old software to display it that may not work with the operating system of your choice. Other option is to rip it as an *.iso and than mount that as needed. In the future you can always transcode them to another codec.

The issue is not so much the codec because If I store them on harddisk I would by such a media box as mentioned in another topic on this forum so they will be usable.The biggest issue is the wear and tear over the time.You don't watch the same movie every month but it would be a shame if I want to watch it again after 10 years to find out that the data has dissapeared

[dave_boo]

Well, that's why you rip them to the hdd as an *.iso. That way you can just create a new disk to play in your dvd player.

[basjke]

Well, that's why you rip them to the hdd as an *.iso. That way you can just create a new disk to play in your dvd player.

So you think harddisk copy will survive burned dvd in durability?How long do you think a good quality,and which brands are considered good quality,burned dvd will last?

[dave_boo]

Of course the hdd copy will last longer.....you can always transfer it to a new hdd!

If you want to compare the durability of what you're storing it on, I've always heard that good DVD-Rs have about a 10 year life span. A hard drive will be lucky to last that long. But since we're constantly upgrading our drives it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[basjke]

Of course the hdd copy will last longer.....you can always transfer it to a new hdd!

If you want to compare the durability of what you're storing it on, I've always heard that good DVD-Rs have about a 10 year life span. A hard drive will be lucky to last that long. But since we're constantly upgrading our drives it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

That's what I wanted to know.As I can read in your last post dvd's are to prefer over harddrives.If I store the movies on a harddisk this disk will be used only for the movies as I will install it in a media box.Nobody will think about to copy it to a new drive after a certain time and when you find out it is unusable it is too late already.

So you think dvd-r has a lifespan of 10 years,is there another medium that will last longer?Will a hdd that is solely used for the movies,so will only be used so now and then,also be unreadable in less then 10 years?

[dave_boo]

Well, you can't really beat a Tape drive for longevity. However, I don't know if they've moved beyond the SCSI bus (so expect to have to buy a controller). Also, medium and drive price is crazy expensive. To be honest there's nothing in the home consumer's price range for long term medium storage like you're talking about.

[zab]

tapes can have humidity issues.

you have lots of choices these days. Buy a big harddrive, and convert them all to xvid and you can store hundreds or thousands of movies. If you take care of your tech equipment, it will take care of you. Don't buy shit and you'll be OK. Hard drives these days are very reliable. If you want super reliability, make a media centre PC with 2 large hard drives, and have them in a raid array which mirrors between the drives, and you'll have failsafe reliability as well.

a media centre pc can be built really cheap - all you need is basic pc bits, alot of storage, and a video card that willoutput to your TV. Then you are sorted you have a fantastic home entertainment system, that beats most people.

I could go on for years about this stuff, let me know if u want more advice.

[stumonster]

you will store your data at home now but in a few years time you will be renting space at a data centre somewhere which will mirror your info on another continent as backup - speed of access is all that is required.

for now build or buy some network accessible storage ( NAS ) and protect it with a good UPS.

Linksys NAS

[basjke]

tapes can have humidity issues.

you have lots of choices these days. Buy a big harddrive, and convert them all to xvid and you can store hundreds or thousands of movies. If you take care of your tech equipment, it will take care of you. Don't buy shit and you'll be OK. Hard drives these days are very reliable. If you want super reliability, make a media centre PC with 2 large hard drives, and have them in a raid array which mirrors between the drives, and you'll have failsafe reliability as well.

a media centre pc can be built really cheap - all you need is basic pc bits, alot of storage, and a video card that willoutput to your TV. Then you are sorted you have a fantastic home entertainment system, that beats most people.

I could go on for years about this stuff, let me know if u want more advice.

Thanks for your reply but my question is not about how to build a mediacenter.What I want to find out is which medium is able to hold digital data for lets say at least 20 years without eroding the data.

[jaideeguy]

How about those external HDs that are comming out. Most have a 5 yr warantee and as mentioned earlier, you can always transfer if they fault. and memory seems like the only thing that is decreasing in price now a days.

I have an extensive collection of downloaded movies, tv shows in avi format [divx/xvid] and am quite happy with the quality and compressed size and versitility by being compatable with windows media player and my dvd player that accepts a usb memory stick and reads divx. I really can't see any improvement on this storage for a long time. I haven't bought a dvd in a long time.

[nikster]

For longevity, you will need a hard drive, and a back up hard drive. The main reason is that it's easy to transfer the data to a new hard drive. Say a hard drive will easily last 3 years, probably 5. Then, you upgrade to two new hard drives, and transfer everything over, which will take a few hours at the most.

If you burn your own DVDs, you would have to burn 2 (in case one dies, same as the hard disk). The problem is that checking them regularly is much harder than with hard disks. And transferring data takes a huge effort, should you need to. DVDs are simply not practical, and not nearly reliable enough to last 10 years. If you buy an original DVD and keep it in a storage box in a dry room, you can be reasonably sure it will last a long time. But DVDs that you burned yourself are hit and miss, and certainly not a safe storage.

2 hard disks are the safest and most practical medium for long term storage. You need two because one might die, in which case you have to buy a replacement of the same capacity. It's unlikely that one dies, but next to impossible that both die at the same time. Just run disk checks on them regularly.

[nikster]

How about those external HDs that are comming out. Most have a 5 yr warantee and as mentioned earlier, you can always transfer if they fault. and memory seems like the only thing that is decreasing in price now a days.

Correction: You need to transfer _before_ they fail. The only way to do that is by keeping a copy on a second HD around.

The 5 year warranty is fine and dandy, but they won't be able to restore your data. They'll replace the drive but the data on it is much more valuable and lost forever if the HD dies.

[jaideeguy]

I did have a HD fail and was able to recover files with some sophisticated recovery software. But you're saying that sometimes they can fail completely and can't recover any files?

And another question....with prices dropping and technology improving, do you think that HDs will become more fail proof??

[A_Traveller]

Hardware failures of HDD are not that uncommon. The view that's been expressed to me is that the contaminate level in the atmosphere here is a factor, as is to a lesser degree heat. A hardware failure is much more difficult to recover from, even with access to a clean room environment.

Regards

Edited May 15, 2008 by A_Traveller

[dave_boo]

Hardware failures of hard drives are fairly common (mostly Maxtor in my experience). This can be mitigated by using Enterprise spec hdds. They're usually built to a higher level and seem to last longer.

Also, if you're looking to extend the life of a drive, don't RAID-1 your drives. Reason being is most people buy a pair of drives and those drives come from the same lot. That means that when one fails due to the work it's had to perform over the course of its life, the other one is most likely on its way out also. And then you're going to stress the drive when you rebuild your array even further. You're better off simply backing up nightly/weekly to the second drive. This limits the wear and tear on it.

I don't want to sound negative toward those that use RAID-1(I use RAID-5!), but that's the facts. However, a lot of good quality controllers will let you stick a newer bigger drive in and rebuild your array, take out the older smaller drive and span across that one.

[basjke]

Thanks evryone for the reply's.What I can understand from it is that storing a movie for the long term is a no-no.I guess it will be cheaper and more convenient to buy or download a new copy each time you want to watch an nostalgic movie once again.

[lopburi3]

Contaminate level in the atmosphere? If conductive it could lead to shorting of the PC board. It should not be getting into the disc drive itself. I do know for a fact there were serious problems in Beijing some 25 years ago with all the coal dust in the air (or air in the coal dust). But Thailand is nothing like that.

[A_Traveller]

^ contrary to what many people believe the hard disk platters and heads are not suspended in a vacuum, since they use Bernoulli principals they need a medium, in this case air to function, nor are they hermetically sealed. Since the distance between the head and the platter is considerably less than a human hair, {flying height 0.07μm, a fingerprint is 4.0 μm, smoke particle 6.00 μm, and hair [& dust] 10.00 μm} it is not difficult to see how a non conductive contaminate entering the drive could render damage to the head especially when one considers the relative speeds with the platter rotating at 7,500 RPM or greater these days.

Regards

Edited May 15, 2008 by A_Traveller