Here's a point to be made about optical media from my own perspective: A couple times a week I go to Fry's Electronics for lunch. They have a cafe there and I like the club sandwich they have. It's a weird place to go for lunch but I like it (plus I'm weird anyway). Anyway, while I sit there, I always sit in the same place near the CD/DVD/BR/games and look out at the aisles. They are all empty. Maybe there's like a straggler here and there but generally those discs are just sitting there not being sold and collecting dust. I should take a picture next time I go there. It's just an empty wasteland now. Not too long ago, I can remember going to Fry's and enjoying my time browsing through those same aisles looking for a movie or music or a game. There would be tons of people there doing the same thing. It's a ghost town now.
So if optical media is still relevant, then I guess I'm just not seeing it.
You're correct. You're not seeing it, the same way many don't see it. Well until they come to "us" crying that their computer crashed awon't hey lost all the photos and videos from the last 15 years. And they also wonder why they can't access one of the 157 free and paid online storage services they backed up some pictures to 7 years ago.
Yes there is online storage these days, but realistically where can you store hundreds of GB of data at a decent price? And without blowing through the data caps that are becoming the norm? And what guarantee do you have that tomorrow you won't read in the news that the service has closed without warning?
Last edited by CeeBee; 02-15-2014 at 01:39 PM.
I'm confused. Are you saying that you backup your computer to CD's? Wow, that must take an eternity and you must have a whole room full of discs piled up by now.
By the way, I have a 50GB Box account. Anyone can get this. They offer it all the time. It's synced to my computer. So if Box dies, then I have a local copy. If my local copy dies, then I have Box. If both die, it's backed up to an external drive anyway -- because every good IT guy knows that if only 1 copy exists, then it's not truly a "backup" anyway. But either way, I'm not using optical discs for any of this and I don't know of anyone who would. But if that's your preference, then ok. Enjoy!
Blu-Ray 50gb on a disk. Booya!
Dude, what exactly is it that you are debating? If I understand you correctly, you are trying to support the stance that optical disc is the way to go for backing up your files? It's like you are trying to convince me that people still drive a horse and buggy to work every morning. While I'm sure there are some Amish people who do in fact drive a horse and buggy to work, the majority of people have moved past that and use cars now. So what exactly is your debate? Are you trying to convince me that CD's are still cool? or something else? Because I'm not getting your point.
Webby, if you use cloud storage, you have lost control of your data. You can debate all you like about various encryptions and redundancies etc, but an optical disk in your own room in its case is as good as you are going to get. I reburn mine every couple of years or so as nothing lasts forever.
When something as cheap comes along, I will use that. I also use usb sticks and hard drives, and they are all in a case which I hope to have time to grab in a fire or flood.
However, I don't store films unless they are home movies from my cameras. I don't store music unless it's something I or my family have created. All that entertainment media can be got again through any number of services so it's pretty pointless backing that up.
Well that's fine. I'm not even arguing that. The point I originally tried to make (and that keeps going off onto a tangent) is the people generally aren't doing it that way. This thread is about sharpie markers vs lightscribe. And why? Because lightscribe is more expensive now. And why? Because people aren't buying optical media these days as much as they have in the past.
So that is the claim I am making. Is it true? Well I don't know. We can certainly look up data on the Internet and figure it out. But I'm going by what I see. I see people playing music and video on their phone, I see people installing software from files instead of CD's, I see Netflix increasing exponentially in popularity. I mean, everywhere you look you see less optical media and more cloud media -- hence why things like lightscribe are getting more expensive. It's just supply/demand.
Ok so again,... just to be clear, I'm not debating on what technique is better or worse. As super geeks, I get it that you guys have put a lot of thought into what you believe works best for you. But the general masses don't put that much thought into it.
So anyway, this is my theory. It's a claim I'm making. If I'm wrong, then I'd love to see proof of that because again,... when I look around, I just don't see people buying DVD's and CD's anymore like they used to.
There's nothing wrong with a thread going off topic. Some of the best threads are created that way. Personally I'm enjoying reading the debate so far and I'd like to take part as well and add my own input.
Like most of you, I have hundreds of GB of photos and videos, and until recently it was all over the place, unsorted and just sitting on a 1TB drive in my home PC. I looked into putting it onto DVD but that would have taken forever and would have taken literally hundreds of DVD's. What also worries me about DVD's is that they do breakdown over time so I don't trust that media for long term storage. Then you have cloud storage which I trust with the big players, but the cost for anything over 100GB is too expensive IMO. USB sticks don't offer enough space, and from past experience can lose data way too easily.
That left only 1 viable solution for me which is external hard drives. I sorted my photos and videos into month/year and purchased 2 x 2TB external drives and copied the folder structure onto each drive. One I keep at home and the other I keep in the safe at work. Every few months I'll update the one at home and swap it with the one at work. I really can't think of a more efficient and safer way to keep my data. The data is also on a separate drive on the home PC, and I'm also considering picking out the very best photos/videos and keeping them in the cloud somewhere, (hopefully under 20GB worth of stuff).
Just recently I also sent about 250 photos to be printed professionally, so that we have a hard copy in albums to flick through now and again.
I'd be interested to hear how Lance works with his digital media from the photography business.