Blank BluRay Prices Continue to Fall

[Beck38]

BD25 prices (yes, even inkjet printables) have continued to fall lately, base prices for 4x are hitting 75cents ea, with 6x not far behind (less than 80cents).

BD50 is still well over $4+ each, while DVD9's are around $1; with the prices for BD burners, even the 'best' now well below $100, exactly why anyone is doing DVD9's is beyond me (I myself still have a couple of 25packs left over from those days).

For those who rely on hard drive storage, prices on 4TB drives have taken a tumble lately as well, I just completed a rather large upgrade on my NAS array, and costing was right at $80/TB with 4TB drives (price includes drive slots/trays).

[SydBarrett]

It sure would be nice if BD50 prices would fall, but you can't really beat a couple of 4tb hard drives.

[Kerberos76]

Never thought I would see the day when buying another hard drive, to backup my hard drive, would be almost the same price as burning the entire contents to CDs/DVDs/ etc. I remember backuping my 40MB hd to 3.25 floppies.

[piercerseth]

WD reds do seem to get cheaper everytime I check. I don't think it'll be long before we see those fancy 6TB heliated drives outside of enterprise settings.

[megabyteme]

[...]the device can easily run for “a few million hours” and will come with a 5-year warranty. The company isn’t discussing price-point at the moment, but Campbell theorized that the drives, which he said are more expensive than most other HDDs on the market, will one day be available for everyday consumers. http://www.dvice.com/2013-11-7/helium-filled-6tb-hard-drive-hits-market

I think that is inevitable, p.

[piercerseth]

What I should have said was, I look forward to not paying 800 bucks for one.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-0F18335-64MB-7200RPM-ULTRA/dp/B00GTD3AR2/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8 (http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-0F18335-64MB-7200RPM-ULTRA/dp/B00GTD3AR2/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8)

[megabyteme]

I wasn't disputing you, p. When I think of "consumer" market (versus "enthusiast" or early-adopter), I have Joe Sixpack's technology buff brother-in-law in mind. We probably won't see these included in HP units available at Wal-Mart, but the home-build market should find $350 palatable for high-efficiency, long life-expectancy, massive storage. Guys like you, skiz, Art, and Idol (Idol gets included not for his knowledge, but he has enough disposable income to wear these as running shoes).

[Beck38]

What I should have said was, I look forward to not paying 800 bucks for one.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-0F18335-64MB-7200RPM-ULTRA/dp/B00GTD3AR2/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8 (http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-0F18335-64MB-7200RPM-ULTRA/dp/B00GTD3AR2/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8)

Somewhat obviously, it will happen. The only question is when. Some 18 months ago when I did my second to last 'upgrade' of NAS expansion, 3TB were right around $100/Raid5 Terabyte, and now (18 months later) 4TB is around $90/Raid5 Terabyte (prices include drive slots/trays). If 6TB is the 'next' steppingstone of capacity, then it will be interesting to see how long it takes to reach that level of pricing, and at what point it becomes (at that point) to start reworking some of my earlier 2TB drives (all Hitachi, btw) to larger capacity.

After the current upgrage (added 28TB) it's going to take at least a couple of years of 'thinking about it' though. I've taken a lot of 'heat' from folks for pushing optical BD25's in the past, but for the cost and expandability (unlimited, not to mention that it means that everything on the NAS is backed up 'on local tap' so to speak) it's really the way to go. I look at everything from a cost per TB, and optical disc is now at $30 whereas cost on hard disc is that $80-90 depending on whether or not one wants no RAID or minimal RAID (and I have a rather large chunk of my NAS as RAID6, not just the HiDef 'stuff').

Just one of those things that, eventually like I said, will have to be thought out when/if the price point comes into 'view'.

[megabyteme]

I've taken a lot of 'heat' from folks for pushing optical BD25's in the past, but for the cost and expandability (unlimited, not to mention that it means that everything on the NAS is backed up 'on local tap' so to speak) it's really the way to go.

I do not necessarily think that's a bad idea. Sure beats a massive HDD failure. As long as the contents of your BD25's are easily cataloged, why not. :idunno:

[Beck38]

All inkjet printed, with the pertinent info (title, release date, burn date, MEgui crunch info, audio info, a full-color rendition of the bluray cover, and any extras I put on it, or on an additional disc (with both the SD/DVD extras as well as any SD/HD extras from the BR disc). Works for me, as I have some 10K DVD5/9's done about the same way for some 8+ years before I started up with the hidef stuff.

Epson Photo R380 is my current printer, my third (doing all those DVD's I burned through 2 earlier models).

[piercerseth]

I wasn't disputing you, p. When I think of "consumer" market (versus "enthusiast" or early-adopter), I have Joe Sixpack's technology buff brother-in-law in mind. We probably won't see these included in HP units available at Wal-Mart, but the home-build market should find $350 palatable for high-efficiency, long life-expectancy, massive storage. Guys like you, skiz, Art, and Idol (Idol gets included not for his knowledge, but he has enough disposable income to wear these as running shoes).
Sorry meg didn't mean to come off like that. I really should have been more clear initially.

Beck, you working at facebook now? :P http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/why-facebook-thinks-blu-ray-discs-are-perfect-for-the-data-center/That robot BD jukebox contraption is pretty interesting.

[Beck38]

I retired 13 years ago, before I was 50.

There are a lot of folks that are betting on huge tape carousel setups to do the same thing, but obviously are much slower random access wise; I built several such for insurance companies many years ago, that I believe are still working, and in fact I did trip across another article that 'petabyte' (or higher) class of tape systems are being built right now.