BD25 Prices Continue Fall

[Beck38]

Yes, but a basic disc setup (as you describe) has no redundancy. Many low-cost redundant setups (like 'un-raid') are just above that, providing minimal protection.

I looked at it all, from small to very large systems, and found a system that provided enough drive slots that did two things: first, give one the ability to go with RAID6, and second, to provide goodly amounts of storage.

There are several systems in the 24+ drive range (so, 2TB drives, we're talking 44TB RAID6 array's), but are in the $10K+ range and have to be built to 100% from the get go.

I found one manufacturer,Thecus, where the number of drives (7), was highest, and it supported both RAID5/6. Therefore, one could build a 9TB RAID6 array for under $2K each, and simply stack them one upon another, building as your storage needs increased. And, the cost curve at the 'end point' equaled that of the 'superbig' boxes, 45TB at around $10K price point.

If one does the math, one can store some 360 BR discs (25GB ea) on each 9TB module, or at 35GB/ea, then 250. That works out to around $8/per BD disc (all depending on how large each disc is, of course). Pretty high compared to 'basic' discs, but it's RAID6 protected.

If one recodes it, though, the space can be reduced quite a bit (if BD25's, then almost half). I have one machine running doing that right now, and am bringing up another to more than double my output. But I have over 90TB of SD DVD's that I took some 7+ years to recode and burn, and figure that with HD, I'll duplicate that in about half the time. Once I get the production line going 100%.

So unless RAID array's and their drives drop even more (but I'll bet the burnable discs price curve will exceed that), burnable is the way to go in the long run. Not to say that some 90TB array wouldn't be nice, but at what price?

[iLOVENZB]

People still trust disc media?

[phokat]

I do for long term archival like home photos and videos. I recently had my NAS go down with 2TB of data... that was the backup. Hard drives have an average life span of 3-5 years. After which they die with no warning whatsoever. And of course u have to keep backing/mirroring the data on hard drives.

I will prolly put all my imp data on few BD media.

[Beck38]

'Defense in Depth' is the watchword on this stuff, and it really comes down to how much of a hassle you're willing to go through to 'reconstruct' what just took a dive.

I have a huge number of CD's I bought back in the 80's, way before cd burners, nice large cheap HD's, or even silicon USB sticks. I sat down with Winamp a few months ago, and crunched them all down to FLAC for storage on my RAID array. I'm still grinding my way through them converting to 320kb/s AAC for use in my car/USB. Now, losing all that work... is why they're on my RAID array.

I looked at unRAID for a couple months, but decided that recovering from any disc error was both a lot of work, IF it was recoverable at all (which it really isn't). I'll take RAID6, thank you.

As I said, I have over 90TB of SD/DVD discs (yes, over 8000+), and even though it'd probably take a few weeks to roll through them, I do pull things out at random, and it's extremely rare to hit something that has errors on it (it's happened once; managed to recover the disc and re-burn a new one). Probably because I always burned at half-speed (i.e., a 4x disc at 2x, 8x disc at 4x), and never skipped doing a full verification on any disc.

We'll see, of course, with BD25's. When I get up past 100 or so, without any problems, I'll post it here.

[Beck38]

Slight falling on 4x/inkjet hub printable Riteks, now down to $1.78/ea in 25ea cakepacks at Supermediastore, prices elsewhere in the same ballpark, although Meritline gets the nod this week at $1.60/ea (same cakepack), both with free ground shipping.

Almost at the $1.50 price point, will they make it by years end?

[sandman_1]

If the BD25's come down some more, say around $1.25, I will probably get a drive. It will be nice to reduce my DVD5/9 data collection.

[Beck38]

That $1.25-1.50 area is of particular interest, as that is where the DVD9/DoubleLayer DVD9 prices have been for... forever, although the non-inkjet printables are at the low end of that (and I'm talking Verbatim here, not the super cheap types that tend to have high failure rates).

Also, 50GB/double layer BD50's are still hovering around $10-11/ea, LONG way to go. Hardware costs are, for the top-line burners (I have two Pioneer 205's), still around $190 or so.

Certainly none of this down to DVD5/25cent or burners (last Pioneer dual-layer I bought a year ago at $22), but for HD use, and being as the storage capacity is 5 times more, it's almost there.

[JustDOSE]

Thats still too rich for my blood.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-TN958-Panas...item3a5e988eb9 59 bucks ebay slow but cheap, and someone as used BD's for sale? ill believe it when i see it on ebay, ha.. =s

[Beck38]

That model (Panasonic UJ-110) is a reader only (for BD), not a burner (only does DVD burning). The giveaway is that it's IDE, not SATA or USB2/3 or some other high speed interface.

Here's the specs from Dell:

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...74/en/spec.htm

[Beck38]

$1 'Barrier' Cracked

A company called Optical Quantum has shown up on at least SupermediaStore with injethub-printable BD25's at $9.99 for a 10-pack cakebox ($1/ea), on special w/ free shipping if you order over $25 of anything (standard price is $1.40/ea)

Quality reports from users say 'just great'.