Blue Ray as storage for R3D's??

[David Birdy]

Has anyone tried to use a Blue Ray burner to store R3D files?

Can we talk about the Pros v.s. Cons of this?

It seems that optical disks are more reliable and will archive better than Tape?

 

[jbeale]

This has been discussed here before. I think there are a lot more questions than answers about the archive-ability of optical media, in particular Blu-Ray since it is so new. Tape is a bit more of a known quantity in that regard. Many large institutions back up large amounts of data on tape right now, and I believe it is less expensive per gigabyte of storage.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

It seems that optical disks are more reliable and will archive better than Tape?

Actually, tape is more reliable than optical media. There is a thing called disc rot and it's already affected some Blu-Ray discs. The material that they use to make the dye that's between the two layers of plastic is an organic material and it rots after a while. I'm already starting to back up burned DVD's that I just burned a few years ago because they are starting to get bad spots in a few of them.

The real problem is that there is no current technology that's a long term storage option CF/SD cards are about the best out there right now, but that's costly per MB. I'm doing LTO-3 tape, and I believe that if stored properly, it will last me at least ten years.

Matthew

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

This is a horse of a topic that has been beaten to a bloody pulp on these forums.

Pros to using Blu-Ray as data storage: Cheap drives, universally recognized UDF file system readable on any platform, media and drives will be commonplace in most new systems by the middle of 2009. Prices on media should start falling soon.

Cons: Currently BD media costs about 80% as much per GB as conventional DVD-R -- do the math on that. DL BD media is even more. It is not cost-effective until media prices fall drastically.

It seems that optical disks are more reliable and will archive better than Tape?

Not a chance. Tape is nowhere near bullet-proof. Nor is it impervious to electromagnetic fields. However, it can withstand most anything else as long as it's kept in a consistent environment with minimal humidity -- non-condensing. There is some EM drift over time and dispersion of the data bits, but proper archival methods and good archival software guards against this. Realistically, currently accepted tape systems like LTO-3 and LTO-4 are probably the most robust and standardized way to archive data for the long term.

Optical media uses photochemical dyes to store data. Over time, the dyes revert to their original state or degenerate in some way, laser imprints or the "burned dots" can bleed or soften or sometimes shrink. -- Different dyes give different results. Optical media that is photochemical in nature actually ages much the same way as film does. But unlike film where it can take many years for a film print to degenerate to the point of visual loss, optical media has a much smaller room for error -- especially with the dot size of Blu-Ray. It takes very little change to introduce data corruption. These discs are sensitive to light, especially UV and other higher frequency wavelengths. Visible light can damage optical media with prolonged exposure, so archival discs must be stored in the dark. Consistently cool temperatures are good too. But even with that, we are now seeing with older CD-R and even some DVD media that the lifespan of these dyes range from about 12 to 20 years. Not bad really, but the actual chemicals used have changed little over the years and the real difference between a writable Blu-Ray disc today and a writable CD-R disc from 15 years ago is the smoothness of the substrate on which these photochemicals are deposited and the process by which they are applied in order to make for a more reliable medium that can handle smaller laser imprints.

Anyway, I think optical disc will be a viable solution once the price comes down. And whether you choose Blu-Ray or LTO tape, don't trust any media with your only copy of anything. Multiple copies stored in different locations is always the best practice, whether you choose one type of media or several.

 

[Mel Matsuoka]

I wouldn't trust optical disc for any sort of mid-to-long term archival purposes at all.

My reasons are purely anecdotal--the reliability of optical media is hotly debated from both sides of the argument--but I stopped trusting DVD-Rs and CD-Rs for anything important after I spent a weekend transferring several hundred discs that I've burned over the years onto external hard-drive backups. Since around 1997, I've been burning CD-Rs, and later DVD-Rs, and amassed a huge collection of discs since then. I kept them all in those zip-up CD "books" with the sleeves and pockets, and they were kept scratch-free.

To my horror, I found that around 35-40% of the discs I tried to transfer were either partially or completely unreadable by any CD/DVD drive that I tried them in. These discs had no visible signs of damage whatsoever, yet they basically turned themselves into coasters. And many of these discs were only 3-4 years old!

Granted, many of these discs were of the CompUSA "Buy 4000 DVD-Rs for five bucks" variety, but a lot of them were also highly regarded, brand name media (i.e., Apple, Verbatim).

I was recently listening to a podcast by Rick and Rose from the semi-famous 90s indie-rock band The Poster Children (remember "If You See Kay"?), and Rose was mentioning that she had made triplicate CD archives of the Enhanced-CD sourcefiles for their 1997 album "RTFM", and tried to read them again recently, and found that ALL of the discs were unreadable.

Again, this is all anecdotal evidence, but so far I have not seen any sufficient proof that self-burned optical media are reliable for anything but short-term storage or playback purposes. It's far more important to have backup redundancy across different media types (e.g., one backup on LTO tape, and and a cloned copy on an external FW drive)

 

[jbeale]

FWIW... at one time, Kodak made a "Gold Ultima" CD-R and did some rather time-consuming tests to study its estimated archival properties. Their estimate (over 200 years) seems optimistic to me, but whatever it really was, their data supports the idea they had the most archival disc available. You can read more about it at these links:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1632.shtml
http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/Media/Kodak.html

After 2002, "Kodak Gold Ultima" media was no longer made. Apparently, there isn't enough of a market for well-made, truly long-lasting CD-R media... most people just want really cheap media. Delkin and MAM-A make big claims about their gold media, but I haven't seen any convincing studies, and indeed the anecdotal evidence is not so encouraging.

 

[Martin Weiss]

What about those medical-grade gold discs? They are marketed as lasting 100 years.

 

[Uli Plank]

I can confirm both kinds of experience: I've got a few Kodak Gold CDs from the mid nineties (not even stored cold, just hidden from light) and they all play fine.
OTOH once I accidentially left a brand DVD-R next to the window in summer and it was gone after only two weeks.

 

[David Birdy]

Great stuff guys thanks for all the input!

I am looking for a way to incorporate on-set play back, client copies and archival solutions for my R3D files and hoped that Blue Ray would do it all!

I may use Blue Ray, but would not consider it a "long term" storage solution.

Any news on the Red Ray...... I think the "Mad Scientist" has been working late in the lab!..... Jim & Red team??

Also don't forget to post those pics & videos from the Red Christmas party..
The word is NO One throws a party like Jim!!!irate:

Dave

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I have some of those Kodak gold CD-Rs. They all still work as far as I'm aware and some are about 10 years old, but I haven't looked at them in a while. I do remember them.. seems that I burned a lot of coasters with that media. Those and the original silver Ritek media back in '98 or so... I had a Plextor drive that would not burn that media at all and about a 50% coaster rate out of a Sony drive.

I think Blu-Ray will be a good solution if/when prices come down to earth. Talking about digital archival methods and wanting them to last more than 25 years is pretty foolish, IMO. Data is something that does not change when being copied (if copied properly) so it's in our best interest to consolidate and transfer our digital archives to more current media over time. If someone can guaranty 25 years on an optical disc, that's pretty darn good because it realistically only has to last about 10 years for the next major advancement is storage comes along.