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Posted by Bill's News on 01/16/55 11:52
Ken Maltby wrote:
> "John" <cow@chicken.com> wrote in message
> news:s673b2l8i9kce68m89jao46os0mk7ntmae@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 09 Jul 2006 20:27:45 GMT, Roy L. Fuchs
>> <roylfuchs@urfargingicehole.org> wrote:
>>
>>> You can get a 300GB hard drive these days for $100.
>>>
>>> That's like two 100 packs of CD-R media back when it first
>>> came out
>>> (price wise).
>>>
>>> Far more reliable.. immediately available storage, and a
>>> dump so
>>> huge that even your porn lovin' ass won't fill it up too
>>> quickly...
>>
>> The HD drive is a good idea but I tend to think that hard
>> drives are
>> more prone to failure.
>>
>
> Not really, when off line the hard drive is much easier to
> store, in a manner that keeps the data unaffected and totally
> retrievable. Where as DVDs can be easily scratched, even
> if they don't succumb to "Dye Rot". If you were able to
> make "pressed DVDs" you might have a point, but there is
> no data that burned dye DVDs last as long as magnetic tape
> much less magnetic disks.
>
> For repeated random use, the one hard drive beats 70 DVDs
> any day.
>
>
>> If I was to buy one hard drive to store all my multimedia
>> files on
>> (most of which are news, sports and documentaries
>> particularly
>> wildlife, so not much porn except for Monkeys or Tigers
>> mating!) I
>> would also have to buy a second HD that the first would be
>> backed up
>> to.
>>
>
> Not so bad an idea if you really want to insure their long
> term
> survival. (Some call that approach a RAID array) One thing
> you will find is that it takes a lot less time to backup to
> another
> hard drive than to DVDs. (Even if you don't count the time
> needed to change out those 70 disks.)
>
>
>> With DVD-R discs, I already have a DVD-R/RW drive to make use
>> of, and
>> the media does seem to be pretty cheap. 6 or 7 for a pack
>> of 25 TY
>> 16x discs, or perhaps just 4 or 5 for 25 Ritek 16x ones.
>>
>> So what is that? I can't remember how many GB of a DVD disc
>> is
>> usable? Say about 4.3GB? 4.3GB x 25 = 107.5GB for only 4 to
>> 7.
>> That's not too bad IMHO and very cheap.
>>
>> If you got a spindle of 50 discs you would save even more.
>> 13-50
>> for TY 16x DVD-Rs. 7.50 to 9 for 50 Ritek 16x Discs or
>> 9.50 for 50
>> Ricoh FujiFilm 16x discs which seem to be quite reliable as
>> well and
>> get good reviews.
>>
>> If I was to get another SATA Hard Drive to put in my system,
>> I'm not
>> sure that my system can accept another one? I am pretty sure
>> there is
>> only one slot for one SATA drive which is what is in it now
>> along
>> with two ATA drives. I believe that the SATA Controller cards
>> are
>> quite expensive as well.
>>
>
> As far as I know there are no SATA controllers that only do
> one
> drive. (Wait I think there was one VIA chip.) What motherboard
> do you have? SATA Controller cards start around $20.
>
>
>> I think the next time I buy a new Hard Drive will be for my
>> next
>> system which will probably be sometime in late 2007 or early
>> 2008.
>>
>> John
I agree, in principal, with Ken. I have about 4 tB of MPEG2 &
MPEG4ish video on DVD, @ about 4:3 :: RW:R. This would fit on
eight 500 gB drives and the roughly 7 cubic feet of DVDs would
become about 1 cubic foot of HDD.
500 gB drives pre-packaged in external (USB or firewire)
housings are about $250; sans housing somewhat less.. The
number of DVD discs involved is over 800, so the hard drive
alternative is roughly twice the replacement cost of the DVDs +
their mini jewel cases.
Of course it's a lot easier to make the HDD choice today than it
was 6 years ago when not only prices of both media were quite
different, but hard drive capacities were not comparable. In
this regard, I envy your newness to the fray;-0)
However, from the point of view of damage, losing one or a
couple of 4.3 gig DVDs is trivial when compared with an
unrecoverable HDD. Of course many HDD problems are
recoverable, given the tools - but since 2000 I've only tossed
one DVD that became unreadable. Some others which became
unplayable were still copy-able. Having made one bad choice of
external HDD (a now discarded Maxtor 200 USB) I can attest to
the value of being current with backups.
Other advantages, for those who capture TV to PC, is to edit
from the capture machine directly to an external. The MPEG2 is
then "ready to play" and ready to move. If reprocessing to
MPEG4 is desired, then the external drive can be easily moved to
another system - as the capture/playback machine is relatively
low power. The output of the recompression is directed to an
archival external drive - from which it can be backed up to
whatever media you deem appropriate.
Whether you choose HDD or DVD as your storage medium you will
need an index to what's stored - this stuff grows by leaps and
bounds ;-0) I chose to keep mine as an alphabetic HTML page
with links to either IMDB or a few of the TV episode catalogues.
Since I use a PC as the video player now, I can call up this
page on the main viewing screen to make selections from the
numbered DVD discs. The links to descriptive materials are
handy refreshers.
Finally: your friends and neighbors most likely can not borrow
one of your HDDs to play at home, so you're keeping within the
letter of the law;-0)
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