[Kargo]

Hey guys,

I'm currently debating whether or not to buy a Blu-Ray writer. The reason being, I currently hold all of my HD video files on external hard drives but recently when I plugged one of them in the entire drive had corrupted so I ended up losing a lot.

Having them on a Blu-Ray disc as well as hard drive would also give me some peace of mind.

My question however, would it be possible to fit the following files on 1 single 25GB blu-ray disc or would I need to burn them to a seperate disc?

5 x .mkv files @ 1280 x 720. 3000kbps - 7000kbps. = 2.80 GB each (90 minutes each)
1 x .mkv file @ 1280 x 720. 3000kbos - 11000kbps = 4.80 GB (120 minutes)

[chrisjr]

If you burn the disk as a Data disk then the file size is important. If you burn as a Video disk then the duration is important.

A data disk just stores the files "as is" in the same way as a hard drive. So they may not necessarily play back on all players. It depends on what formats any particular player supports. A Video disk converts the files into the same format as a commercial movie disk so is more likely to play on stand alone players. That is why duration is important for video disks and size for data disks.

[David (2)]

thing is any optical disc, like bluray or dvd is quite fragile for important backups. any scratch, smudge, anything on the data surface can cause part or total data loss. this was the cinclusion i reached after many years using various backup options.
imo multiple hard discs is currently the way to go. not partitioning 1 drive but having 2 actual drives. if one fails your data is still safe on the other.
very high capacity usb memory sticks (eg 1tb) might b an option too, but again use more than one in case one of them should fail.

[oilman]

I would agree with David (2). Hard disks are so cheap, use 2 for backup. Chances of both failing are very low - use disk from different manufacturers is a good idea (in case there is a design flaw in one causing early failure).

Cloud based storage is very reliable of course (as this is itself backed up), and is fairly cheap for around 25GB (or may even be free). Why not use 2 clouds if free?

Cloud Solutions do need a reasonable upload speed on broadband for this to be truly viable for storing large files.

I would definitely not rely on an optical disk. You have just been unlucky with your hard disk failure.

[d'@ve]

Storing them on one hard drive and backing that up to another hard drive is the way to go. With usb3 drives and computer ports it's very fast, too - and portable.

It's far too slow and fiddly to use optical storage for large backup storage IMO (and I have one).

[Helmut10]

As is, with those file sizes you would need 2 single layer BR discs.

Obviously you should also consider 5 single layer DVDs, and maybe 1 dual layer DVD.

Of course DVDs have a bit larger active areas for the data so inherently a bit more reliable, and a 1 disc failure less of a disaster.

ALL storage media is subject to failure at some point you can be sure of that.

You need at least one or even more copies to be even more sure, to fend off disaster, it does not matter what type of storage media.

[BeanFeastival]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oilman

I would agree with David (2). Hard disks are so cheap, use 2 for backup. Chances of both failing are very low - use disk from different manufacturers is a good idea (in case there is a design flaw in one causing early failure).

Cloud based storage is very reliable of course (as this is itself backed up), and is fairly cheap for around 25GB (or may even be free). Why not use 2 clouds if free?

Cloud Solutions do need a reasonable upload speed on broadband for this to be truly viable for storing large files.

I would definitely not rely on an optical disk. You have just been unlucky with your hard disk failure.

Instead of hard disks for back up, why not use SSD based storage instead?