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HDD v DVD

What do you gents think is the better way to store movies for 20+ years?

When I say DVD I mean the better quality ones.
 
Hard to say what data storage and reading will be like 20+ years in the future, and whether what we have now will work then, but maybe a combination of both would be in order.
 
Both will be forgotten media in 20 years.
I'd say DVDs for now, but copy them to better media as it comes along. That might include multi-terabyte hard disks at one point. Having multiple copies is good.
 
Do hard drives really fail, in 10years i havent had one fail.

another question i have is if you don't use the hard drive in like say 5 years does that do it harm?
 
DVDs. A mechanical medium like a hard disk is far more likely to fail in 20 years than a DVD, whether it's used or not. If it's dropped, or dust gets in it or even if it gets too close to a magnet, all that data can easily be lost. DVDs that are properly stored in cases, on the other hand, won't be damaged by anything other than excessive heat or cold or scratching the surface with a knife. Given that millions of people are already archiving stuff on DVDs, chances are that someone will be making a DVD player in 20 years. After all, manufacturers are still making turntables, cassette players and VCRs. But try to find a PC these days that can easily use a 20-year old hard disk from an IBM XT.
 
I would say it depends on how much you are going to use the media over the next 20 years. If it'll go in a closet and be forgotten for 2 decades then go with DVDs. They will certainly be obsolete by then but you should still be able to find a player. And the discs themselves, as long as they are stored properly, will work perfectly fine. But if this is a movie collection you are going to watch fairly regularly then go for an HDD system with redundant backups. As technology advances you will be able to update the storage. So today they may go on 1-3 terrabyte HDDs in a RAID setup. In a few years you can move it to SSDs as they take over, then eventually you'll be able to move to whatever is the next big thing (cloud?). The key with hard drives is to have a redundant backups so no single disc failure will wipe out your data.

The other advantage of HDDs is physical space. In a space the size of a dozen or so DVD cases you could have a drive setup holding hundreds or even thousands of movies. And because of Moore's law that disparity will only increase as time goes on. So eventually an entire closet full of DVDs will fit on something equivalent to a thumb drive.

But if you don't update the storage you may well find yourself in a situation where you try to boot up an HDD years down the line and find that the disc has failed, the data has been corrupted, computers of that time can no longer read it, or some combination.
 
I would think that the whole point of storing something is that you don't have to constantly spend the $$$ to move the stuff from one storage medium to another. Besides, when you store movies on a HD, aren't you storing it in a specific computer-based media format that requires a compatible computer software player? What happens in five years when the media format you've stored all these files in becomes obsolete? At least with a DVD you can be pretty sure it will play on just about any DVD player that is compatible with your region.
 
I would say it depends on how much you are going to use the media over the next 20 years. If it'll go in a closet and be forgotten for 2 decades then go with DVDs. They will certainly be obsolete by then but you should still be able to find a player. And the discs themselves, as long as they are stored properly, will work perfectly fine. But if this is a movie collection you are going to watch fairly regularly then go for an HDD system with redundant backups. As technology advances you will be able to update the storage. So today they may go on 1-3 terrabyte HDDs in a RAID setup. In a few years you can move it to SSDs as they take over, then eventually you'll be able to move to whatever is the next big thing (cloud?). The key with hard drives is to have a redundant backups so no single disc failure will wipe out your data.

The other advantage of HDDs is physical space. In a space the size of a dozen or so DVD cases you could have a drive setup holding hundreds or even thousands of movies. And because of Moore's law that disparity will only increase as time goes on. So eventually an entire closet full of DVDs will fit on something equivalent to a thumb drive.

But if you don't update the storage you may well find yourself in a situation where you try to boot up an HDD years down the line and find that the disc has failed, the data has been corrupted, computers of that time can no longer read it, or some combination.

so you're saying that in 10 years time my current external hard drive will be useless?

I would think that the whole point of storing something is that you don't have to constantly spend the $$$ to move the stuff from one storage medium to another. Besides, when you store movies on a HD, aren't you storing it in a specific computer-based media format that requires a compatible computer software player? What happens in five years when the media format you've stored all these files in becomes obsolete? At least with a DVD you can be pretty sure it will play on just about any DVD player that is compatible with your region.

the thing going for HD is how easy it is to find your movie. actually some hi-fi companies like Linn have stated the end of CD's is near and have stopped making cd players stating that HDD storage/playback is the future? i still like my cd's and many in the music industry say cd's have along way to go.
 
so you're saying that in 10 years time my current external hard drive will be useless?...

Probably. In ten years you likely will have gone through at least two if not three new computers and in that time you will almost certainly have upgraded to a new backup/storage system that is smaller, faster, has more capacity, or all three. There's a pretty good chance that in ten years your computer won't even have a USB connection. Look at it this way: ten years ago most people stored data on 3.5 inch floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Today I'd call floppies useless and CD-ROMs close to it, though at least you could still read most CD-ROMs on an average consumer computer.
 
HDDs, always, but keep an eye on them and replace dead/dying ones (always have redundancy as part of your backup too). Over time data can fade too.

I recall something about new "stone discs" which may be of interest to you also.
 
Or you could be paranoid like I am and use both until something better comes along. I've been using computers long enough where I've seen media of all types fail or become obsolete. Anyone remember MFM and RLL drives and QIC tape backups from 20 years ago?
 
Do hard drives really fail, in 10years i havent had one fail.
I never trust them. The hard drive in my first new pc in 1994 failed in 3 weeks. I've had a couple fail since in addition to others become corrupted making the data unreadable. I always backup data files on several drives, usually a second internal and one or two external. However, all my movies are stored on DVD's. I view DVD's as the safest storage right now. I don't worry about technology 20 years out.
 
Do hard drives really fail, in 10years i havent had one fail.

another question i have is if you don't use the hard drive in like say 5 years does that do it harm?
When I worked in a datacentre with thousands of servers, we had to replace one or two hard drives a day on average. And that was high-end ultra-reliable SCSI drives. Nearly all predictive failures rather than actual dying, but failing is failing. Out they went.

Unused hard drives are actually very secure if stored properly. The magnetic domains used to store data do not weaken significantly over time, that is a myth. Though it may become true as recording densities rise in the future? There is a theory that the lubrication dries up if they aren't used for many years, but I've not encountered that myself. Even if that does happen there are ways to get them spinning. The data itself remains intact.
 
in 20 year or much less probably DVDs will be thought of as the 8 track is now. in 20 years HDDs will be long gone. everything will be some sort of solid state. just look how much memory has fallen in just the past couple of years. my first digital camera not so many years ago I upgraded to 256 and it cost over $100. Now I can get 8g all day for under $20. I can get a mirco sd 16g for under $30. I started in computers when I got out of the service in 1972 and have seen most of the changes. Hell my Casio has more memory and processing power than the first 10 years of computers we had. anyone remember wiring boards, punch cards, sorters, readers, diskettes, paper tape, j-35's, 360's, 1132's?
 
What do you gents think is the better way to store movies for 20+ years?

When I say DVD I mean the better quality ones.

There really is no good solution for 20+ years storage. Here are some links for you:

Sustainability of Digital Formats - Planning for Library of Congress Collections
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml

The Media Matters Resource page is comprised of articles related to the issues that audiovisual archivists need to address when moving their valuable collections to a digital domain.
http://www.media-matters.net/resources.html


Cost effective, long term archival of video and image data? ~50 TB
...Unfortunately, there is no best way for you. 30 year archival of digital media is a very hard problem and takes routine investment. About the only formats guaranteed to be readable in 30 years are ASCII and UTF8, which are not video formats. Storage formats change, the 8 track reel-to-reel tapes we were using 30 years ago are nigh impossible to read these days even though the data is still on the tape (there is an interesting story about NASA rebuilding a 40 year old tape drive to get at some newly recovered/discovered Apollo data tapes). Your best bet is to commit to periodic, I'd say every 5 years, assessments of your archival environment with sufficient budget to bring old formats into newer formats.

http://serverfault.com/questions/20...g-term-archival-of-video-and-image-data-50-tb
 
When I worked in a datacentre with thousands of servers, we had to replace one or two hard drives a day on average. And that was high-end ultra-reliable SCSI drives. Nearly all predictive failures rather than actual dying, but failing is failing. Out they went.

Unused hard drives are actually very secure if stored properly. The magnetic domains used to store data do not weaken significantly over time, that is a myth. Though it may become true as recording densities rise in the future? There is a theory that the lubrication dries up if they aren't used for many years, but I've not encountered that myself. Even if that does happen there are ways to get them spinning. The data itself remains intact.

probably why mine lasted so long, hardly use em?

thanks for the great posts gents, a lot of it very interesting.

now like i mentioned above some hi-fi companies stopped making cd's and are asking consumers to buy their music servers, what if your hi resolution music server kicks it and you lose all your music? are these companies going to insure your music is good for 20 years +? they'd better or are they also going to be telling me it's not their fault and i should have 3 backup hdd's?

it will be interesting to see what people do if they start losing their music they spent good money on streaming/downloading?
 
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you need to backup your music/picturesdata whatever on a regular basis to 2 HHDs (used only for backup) once the backups are complete disconnect them and rotate one off site.
 
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