Why not optical?

[newtekie1]

Hmmm, I have 2 hard drives from Seagate that says made in china. Parts are made in china, and then shipped to the country of orgin. There is only a few suppliers.. Don't be fooled by the media... Several companies have gone for the cheap labor and failed. They just don't publish it.

I see, so if two drives are made in china then they all must be. Gotcha.

I definitely agree, two drives is a large enough sample size to determine that all hard drives in the entire world are made in china.

 

[Nitro67]

I definitely agree, two drives is a large enough sample size to determine that all hard drives in the entire world are made in china.

I have a server with 16 Hitachi's in Hardware Raid 6 but they are made in Thailand. Hitachi bought IBM Desktar and that was the best built drive in the past in my opinion. I have 4 Seagates 750G running right now in raid 5, but they are relaible too. Must have trashed that 1.5 WD green, so I can't check it. The old 500G to 750G drives were more reliable. Seems when the companies started going to more platters they tend to fail more often.

 

[newtekie1]

I have a server with 16 Hitachi's in Hardware Raid 6 but they are made in Thailand. Hitachi bought IBM Desktar and that was the best built drive in the past in my opinion. I have 4 Seagates 750G running right now in raid 5, but they are relaible too. Must have trashed that 1.5 WD green, so I can't check it. The old 500G to 750G drives were more reliable. Seems when the companies started going to more platters they tend to fail more often.

Sooo...they aren't all made in china? I'm confused, you seem to be contradicting yourself constantly.

The max that I got out of a hard drive was 5 years, but lately it is less that a year. Now I am running all enterprise drives. So we will see. I have optical disks that are 13 years old. So it looks like optical wins so far.

And I've got SCSI drives that are going on 15 years and still work, they are rarely used, and stored properly when not in use. My continuous use drives that I have right now are all older than 1 years old. I've got optical discs, pressed factory discs at that, that are already showing signs of disc rot and they are under 6 months old.

 

[Goodman]

Hmmm, didn't read the article. I post a little of it...

Tapes and Hard Drives are erasable and were not originally designed for use as an archive medium.

Tape was designed to perform high-speed backups for the purpose of file restores and disaster recovery, and hard disks were designed to store active files and databases that require immediate access and the ability to be modified and/or erased.

Hard drives have a typical life span of up to 3 years under normal operating conditions, and are prone to crash at what always seems like the wrong time.

Read somewhere on the net a few years back (~5-6 years) that CD/DVD blanks should have a lifespan of ~10 years but in reality the majority of them will last about 18 months
they tested few 100's burns CD/DVD's store in optimum temperature & humidity room year round & a few lost data after just a few months & a bit more than 60% lost data after 18 months that is not even half of HDD's lifespan

But yeah! i got a few CD & DVD burned for more than 5 years & still working but these are the old one when they were making good quality blanks & not the cheap ones they make for the past 5 years or so... i got a few new ones that lost data only a day later after been burned :shadedshu

Also HDD'S lifespan are 5-6 years if your are using it 24/7
The three years warranty got nothing to do with the life spend of HDD's

If you use a HDD for backup only it should last longer (if not defective) as Win7 shut down HDD that is not in use for a while & only the HDD with windows installed on will works all the time so your backup drive should last you longer

Anyhow as for me i always backup my data on 2 HDD's or more (one copy on each) & for the more important data like family video/pictures (~10-12GB) i make a copy on each drive + DVD's (3 backup's min.)

Point is blank CD/DVD's are not 100% safe & slow as hell i wouldn't use that or a single HDD as a main backup file/data

BTW: I got about 20 old HDD's from 850MB to 40GB & they are all working good , noisy but all working

 

[newtekie1]

Read somewhere on the net a few years back (~5-6 years) that CD/DVD blanks should have a lifespan of ~10 years but in reality the majority of them will last about 18 months

I remember the Library of Congress did a study in 2005-2006ish, and they came to the conclusion that CDs lasting a lot longer than DVDs for several reasons. The biggest being the bit density was a lot less, so degradation of the recording dye did not damage the data as much, I would assume Blu-Ray is even worse than DVDs due to the extremely high data density.

For DVDs they found that some failed in under 2 years when stored in darkness at 50% humidity and 25°C, while others lasted significantly longer. It was a toss up, largely based on the initial quality of the media.

Now on to studies done on hard drives. Google actually released their hard drive failure statistics a few years back. The study included hundreds of thousands of drives, in many different usage scenarios, far more drives than anyone on this forum likely has ever had experience with. The average failure rate for drives 1 year old was under 2%. The AFR for drives 4 years old was just about 6%, and 5 years was 7%. Beyond just those basic numbers they also classified the drives based on usage, when looking at drives that have "low" usage(you know, like drives that are only powered on to do a backup then powered off again) the failure rate for drives 5 years old was under 2%.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Regular and frequent backups is the only way to backup for data security. Any other approach and your backup strategy is NOT a backup but occasional periodic archiving.

Frequent backups is enormously expensive wrt the time it takes. Do it once, OK. Do it every week or month, and bang... if you cost your time... it is horrendously expensive. Optical required physical intervention.

My solution? Build a cheap low power box (I used an Atom) and set up a RAID1 backup drive. Stick it on your 1Gb switch. Run Cobian differential Backup automagically every night, and there is not "cost of time" to run your backup strategy.

Original data is on the desktop/workstation. Backup is on RAID1 to be solid. It is physically separated by being in the cellar. Not exactly a different location, but behind a locked barred door.

Better an external eSATA HDD than optical IMO.

Optical WAS the way to go 10 years ago. Times have changed. Now you know why optical drives and media is so cheap... no one wants it anymore. Even media players use USB sticks now. The only people using optical are copying CDs for their cars or movies for sharing on DVD.

20 Years ago it was tape. 10 years ago tape drives and tape media was cheap. I nearly bought one... pleased I didnt.

 

[Aquinus]

Run Cobian differential Backup automagically every night

rsync + cron = ultimate method to backup. I would use Ubuntu Server and connect into your Windows box by mounting a samba share while using rsync to do a backup (I would use the -aR flags if you're already in the root of the directory you want to backup). Then you don't have to waste a Windows key or buy another Windows license.

 

[digibucc]

flash media before optical, imo. i don't even have a permanent optical drive. i plug it in via usb on the rare occasions i need to install something.

 

[slyfox2151]

flash media before optical, imo. i don't even have a permanent optical drive. i plug it in via usb on the rare occasions i need to install something.

i dont have an optical drive at all lol....

 

[johnspack]

Still find it amusing how hostile people are towards optical backup! I've backed up 500gbs so far in just a few days. Like I've said, I have optical backups from over 10 years ago that I can still read perfectly. In fact, I have a decade of data on dozens of spindles, and I can read all of them. On top of that, blurays have the hard coat protection, so even less chance of data loss. On top of that, modern bluray burners have advanced optics that can read damaged discs much better than older burners. I also mentioned that most of my backups were primary, in otherwords, I didn't need subsequent backups. And if I do, I still need the primary, untouched backup for reference. I don't think many understand the nature of the backups I'm doing. Also, I haven't heard a more cost effective, permanent backup solution. DAT is still the best for sequential, but the cost is prohibitive. I don't trust mechanical hdds for archival backup. So what is best?

 

[newtekie1]

Again, that is nice, all the studies show optical media degrades far faster than hard drives, so you can not trust HDDs for archival backup, but the studies show it is far better than optical.

And Blu-Ray discs have already been found with disc rot, so yeah...

 

[Aquinus]

I've backed up 500gbs so far in just a few days.

USB 2.0 hard drives do this in a matter of hours and you don't have to swap disks.

 

[johnspack]

18mins per 24gbs, only took a few hours to burn 500gigs total. And quality bluray disks with hard coat are not going to get rot any time soon. How silly. I have 10 year old quality cds that play... no rot. Where are they storing these discs, in a swimming pool? And cds and dvds don't have hard coat. Don't understand the logic there, sorry.

 

[Aquinus]

18mins per 24gbs, only took a few hours to burn 500gigs total.

USB 2.0 is still about 50% faster excluding overhead of moving media every time a disc is done.

I have 10 year old quality cds that play... no rot.

You have MD5 or CRCed every single one of your backups? Wow, you must have a ton of time on your hands.

 

[johnspack]

Well, for the amount of data I have, I'll need about 10k for a array rack. Anyone care to donate? Nope? Well then, optical it is......

 

[newtekie1]

Well, for the amount of data I have, I'll need about 10k for a array rack. Anyone care to donate? Nope? Well then, optical it is......

We've already gone over this, no you wouldn't.

18mins per 24gbs, only took a few hours to burn 500gigs total. And quality bluray disks with hard coat are not going to get rot any time soon. How silly. I have 10 year old quality cds that play... no rot. Where are they storing these discs, in a swimming pool? And cds and dvds don't have hard coat. Don't understand the logic there, sorry.

6 1/4 hours, assuming you were able to burn constantly, which isn't likley.

It is silly to assume your anecdotal evidence is good enough to trust. The studies show rot, it is a real thing, no matter how many tens of discs you have that haven't had problems yet. And these are discs stored at near perfect conditions(50% Humidity, darkness, 25°C). Even media branded as "archival quality" has shown rot.

 

[johnspack]

Okay, say I need to backup 20tbs of data, ready at any time for retrieval. What is my cost? I live on 485 per month after rent, what do I build that can back up that kind of data, and present it in an archival manner, that I can catalog easily.

 

[eidairaman1]

Probably a NAS

 

[slyfox2151]

NAS. would likely be cheaper and faster...

or even DAS.



you can sort by date, versions... its all automatic... no need to search for the right discs... you could set nightly backups. you could even slightly compress the data to save space and not sacrifice any speed. you could encrypt the entire volume for privacy/security.



now i dont know what you pay for your discs... but the cheapest ones i can find of a decent brand is Verbatim Blu-Ray BD-R 25Gb 25pk 6X Speed. $70

now assuming a 100% success rate... thats 625GB over 25 disks for $70
a 2TB HDD costs between $120-$145

so you need to spend over $210 on 75+ disks + a blu ray burner to get the same capacity as just 1 HDD, and then you need to waste time with burning software. you need to wait for the burn to complete before you can start another one. you need to write on the disc whats on it. you need to carefully store it somewhere... and if you need the infomation from it you need to search for the right disk.

 

[eidairaman1]

In All Honesty though. Id have a hd as fast backup and CD/DVD/HDVD/BDR as a long term slow storage/archive. Less u can afford tape backups

 

[Aquinus]

Okay, say I need to backup 20tbs of data

You're computer doesn't hold that much and you already said you need progressive backups because you need to keep you backup of your dev stuff current. If you're using that much space then GIT could have been a god-send for you when you first started. Not to say what you're saying isn't true, but I highly doubt you actually have 20tb of unique data and the majority of it is rendant data where a VCS could have made your life a lot easier, because if you're a developer and your backup is 20tb big, then you're doing something very wrong. Take it from a systems admin, who's job it is to maintain regular backups of production servers with realtime data including testing environments, so multiple copies of this said data and it doesn't even get close to what you're describing.

I don't care how long blu-ray disks last, the point is HDD have been around for a long time and as long as you have redundancy on site and at least 1 off site backup, you're fine. With Blu-ray you have to manage the backup, move disks, and wait. Hard drive can be scheduled to do backups and to power down when it is done, you just have to take the time to write the script that runs a backup. There is absolutely no reason why a hard drive is any less reliable or costs any more than blu-ray, that is the bottom line, and in the end a HDD is faster and reusable, where BD-R is not.

 

[johnspack]

Verbatim 6x lth discs are going $25 for a 20 disc spindle. Keep up! I bought 40 discs for 50 bucks, that's 1tb of backup. That is now the current price on ncix. They are cheap enough now to be throw away as new backups are done. Sorry, but it's hillbilly cheap backups!
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=67655&vpn=97344&manufacture=VERBATIM
And also, yes, I only have 2.5TBs of hd space, but I have TBs of backed up data from over a decade.
By the way, that is my nick: CamelJock, it is a gaming nick, but I used it for the review.

 

[slyfox2151]

Verbatim 6x lth discs are going $25 for a 20 disc spindle. Keep up! I bought 40 discs for 50 bucks, that's 1tb of backup. That is now the current price on ncix. They are cheap enough now to be throw away as new backups are done. Sorry, but it's hillbilly cheap backups!
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=67655&vpn=97344&manufacture=VERBATIM
And also, yes, I only have 2.5TBs of hd space, but I have TBs of backed up data from over a decade.
By the way, that is my nick: CamelJock, it is a gaming nick, but I used it for the review.

right....


so just ignore the rest of my argument?

 

[Rhyseh]

Why not Frankenstein an old machine and purchase 2 x 2TB drives, mirror them and use them for backup purposes?

Burning 80 Bluray's seems a terribly inefficient way to go about doing business. Especially considering there is only a $30 price difference between 2TB of BD-R's and a 2TB HDD....

SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3....

 

[Aquinus]

they are cheap enough now to be throw away as new backups are done. Sorry, but it's hillbilly cheap backups!

Except hard drives cost almost the same, you don't have to throw it away, it copies faster, you can have it be unmanaged, and for long term it is fine. God forbid your backup that you need fails, at least in extreme cases, the platters can be removed from a hard drive and put into another to be recovered. It costs a lot, but you can. There are nothing but benefits to using HDDs. Also you even said yourself that you throw the old one away, so why the heck aren't you using a hard drive? You're throwing money out.

but it's hillbilly cheap backups!

Except long term you're spending more money than you would if you were using reusable media. Listen to what everyone here is telling you.

And also, yes, I only have 2.5TBs of hd space, but I have TBs of backed up data from over a decade.

You just said you throw them out.

so just ignore the rest of my argument?

Apparently so.