What is blue-ray DVD? (complete newbie)

[kenny1999]

Hello

I've been hearing people talking about the term "blue-ray" for years but I've never paid attention to it. I just know it is a thing like CD or DVD and then, I know nothing about it.

After the sudden death of two of my harddisks - external one and internal one, I realize that I will not trust harddisk any more
for data storage. I have some ancient CD that was burnt in 2003 or 2002, and some even in 2001. They are still fine. They can still be read perfectly now.

Now, I have some questions here.

1. Theoretically and practically, is it true that CD/DVD/Blue-ray DVD can last much longer than harddisk? Or it was just all luck by me?

2. What do I have to take care of when using blue-ray DVD for storage? I have no knowledge of it but I know that it's capacity can be very large.

Thank you all

kenny1999

[CWR03]

BluRay is as different from DVD as DVD is different from CD. There's no such thing as "Blue-ray DVD."

There are several threads here already that discuss at length the life expectancy of various optical storage media and what to do to improve their usable life.

[Asmodian]

1. Theoretically and practically, is it true that CD/DVD/Blue-ray DVD can last much longer than harddisk? Or it was just all luck by me?

This is not true in general; I have many burnt CDs and DVDs that were stored in a case in a closet for 5 to 15 years that are no longer readable without errors. This is expected as the organic dyes used are unstable and degrade over time. A hard drive stored in a similar fashion should be fine long term (as long as you have a working computer it is compatible with to plug it into).


2. What do I have to take care of when using blue-ray DVD for storage? I have no knowledge of it but I know that it's capacity can be very large.

I do not have experience with the long term stability of blurays but they are not expected to be better, maybe even worse due to the higher density. If you are interested in long term optical storage I would look into M-discs. They act like a normal DVD once burned but are advertised to be stable for 1000 years. They do require special burner support (they don't act like a standard DVD before burning) but the burners are not expensive.

A single layer bluray can hold ~25 GB while a DVD/M-disc only holds ~4.3 GB. If you do use normal burnable media for long term storage keep it in a cool dark place and keep oxygen out of the area if possible.

[dukey]

I have many burnt CDs and DVDs that were stored in a case in a closet for 5 to 15 years that are no longer readable without errors.

I've had burnt discs I've made the mistake of leaving in sun light. They were totally destroyed.

[Asmodian]

I do think light is the fastest way to damage them, just a few days in direct sunlight can destroy them, but even in a nitrogen purged freezer they will not last indefinitely.

[kurkosdr]

A blue-ray DVD may be a BD9 or BD5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#BD9_and_BD5) (Bluray-Movie files on DVD), which are more popular than you think, because they are compatible with nearly all Blu-ray players.

[hello_hello]

I've had burnt discs I've made the mistake of leaving in sun light. They were totally destroyed.

I've had pressed/bought discs I've made the mistake of leaving in sun light. They weren't too enthusiastic about it either. ;)

[Christea858]

Hello

After the sudden death of two of my harddisks - external one and internal one, I realize that I will not trust harddisk any more
for data storage.

kenny1999

I have an external hard disk. Why the sudden death? I've been relying on this ever since and never used a CD ever since. What seemed to be the problem?

[hello_hello]

I have an external hard disk. Why the sudden death? I've been relying on this ever since and never used a CD ever since. What seemed to be the problem?

Hard drives don't last forever as they have moving parts. One day you'll switch yours on and it won't work anymore. How many hours it'll run for is luck of the draw but given it's got "X" (unknown) number of working hours, how long it'll last also depends on how much you use it. There's a couple of hard drives in old PCs in this house which must be at least 10 years old (they're 20GB and 40GB drives, and one of them is in a Pentium PC) but while they've kept working I've replaced 40GB, 80GB, 320GB and 500GB drives which have reached the end of their life after 2 to 5 years. A couple didn't even make it through the warranty period.

If you drop your drive or knock it off the desk while it's running (and both myself and the cat have done it) it'll probably never work again.

The bottom line is relying on a single hard drive for storing valuable files will probably result in tears one day. If you also keep those files on your PC then you're a lot safer as the chances are pretty good they won't die at the same time, but it pays to backup to more than one location. I backup to an external drive for the convenience of retrieving the files, but I also burn everything to disc. Admittedly that's getting tedious so I'm seriously considering buying a couple more external drives so I can give up burning and back everything up to two hard drives instead.

[Christea858]

Thanks hello_hello! I didn't know this until now. But I do hope my external HD lasts because I barely use it (except when I need it to save my media files) and t's waterproof and shockproof (it has a protector made from antishock rubber)

[Ghitulescu]

No HDD I know is waterproof.

[hello_hello]

This one claims "Immersion protection up to 30' for 3 days (http://iosafe.com/products-rugged-portable-overview)".

[Midzuki]

This one claims "Immersion protection up to 30' for 3 days (http://iosafe.com/products-rugged-portable-overview)".

Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware that such technology was already available to the Average Joes :confused:

Anyway, I suppose/hope those devices still are not "good-enough" for the VO.O.M.E.R. manufacturers :D

[olyteddy]

No HDD I know is waterproof.

Costco has this one too, also fireproof:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11751619&whse=BC&topnav=&cm_sp=RichRelevance-_-categorypageHorizontalTop-_-PopularProductsInCategory&cm_vc=categorypageHorizontalTop|PopularProductsInCategory

[Christea858]

No HDD I know is waterproof.

never tried dipping it in water though....

[Ghitulescu]

Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware that such technology was already available to the Average Joes :confused:

These are only for Average Joe :) and corporate management ;)

Pro HDD don't need these protections, they are already protected inside a fireproof cabinet ... or at least should be ;)

[antonio.landon]

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format... The major application of Blu-ray Discs is as a medium for video material such as feature films. Besides the hardware specifications, Blu-ray Disc is associated with a set of multimedia formats. Generally these formats allow for the video and audio to be stored with greater definition than on DVD.. :)

[Yaser1984]

Blue-ray is the evolution of DVD. Same that the DVD is the evolution of CD

[leonvictor2012]

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a new optical disc format that offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs.

[kurkosdr]

Blue-ray is the evolution of DVD. Same that the DVD is the evolution of CD
And solid state mediums (SDs and USB thumbdrives) are the next step of evolution from optical media, so they deserve to inherit the earth :D

[Nathan Willow]

It is also my first time to know about the difference of DVD's to Blu-ray disc, so I guess it means that the Blu-ray is the updated version of the DVD.

[CWR03]

HD-DVD was an updated version of DVD - the only thing Blu-Ray has in common with DVD is the size of the disc.

[Keiyakusha]

HD-DVD was an updated version of DVD - the only thing Blu-Ray has in common with DVD is the size of the disc.

I see contradiction here. AFAIR the difference between HD-DVD and Bluray was a disc capacity and somewhat different specifications for video (which is not counts, since you can even write bluray filestructure on dvd and hardware will "eat" it as bluray). Technically both use the same 405 nm blue laser. And from what you say it makes me think that HD-DVD and Bluray are different technologies like, maybe current HDD compared to SSD. So how can one be "upgraded dvd" while another - not? By this logic my new 2TB sata hard drive have nothing in common with older 60GB ATA, except form factor.

[CWR03]

So how can one be "upgraded dvd" while another - not?
One of my reasons for said comment is that HD-DVD discs could be manufactured on standard DVD equipment, while Blu-Ray required an almost completely reformatted setup.