Hi,

I'd like to know where and for how much I can get blank Blu-ray media ?

I have a huge quantity of data to backup that will not, (except in the event of a crash) need to be read again

I plan to build a small disc feeding robot to multiple optical disc burner (dvd or Blue-ray whichever ends up cheaper in the long run (we are talking 10 terabyte))

the cheapest mass storage I could find is 0.042$ per GB
hard drives are about 0.28$ per GB
the best I could find was in the 8$ or 9$ range so about 0.34$ per GB for something a lot less convenient or compact than hard drives
tapes are still in the crazy dollar per GB range with 1000$+ drives and slow slow speeds

am I right to think that, at this moment, the cheapest per GB backup solution is DVD*R ?

Dont forget that Blu-ray is a recent tecnology so it could have some bugs on burning, and crapy quality blu-rays. We yet can't scan a burned BluRay.
I'd stick with dvdr, buy a brand that will not give you problems, probably verbatim or Taiyo Yuden.

* * Thread moved from Blank Media forum to Blu-ray and HD DVD Hardware, Software and Blank Media * *

ill agree with that! ... just stick with DVD media as it's far cheaper to burn than blu-ray stuff and like he said above it's still early into development so it's probably not nearly as reliable as burnable dvd's are right now.

just buy Verbatim 16x cert DVD+R discs (which overall i say this is better than TY (Taiyo Yuden) cause of price (usually 30-35 out the door for 100 discs) and it's pretty much the same quality overall) OR Taiyo Yuden 8x cert discs and you cant go wrong as far as long term data reliability

and burn @ 8x and your pretty much good to go

Well, HDDs can be lower than 30c per GB but look @ DVDs - My latest batch of Verbatim cost me $35 for 100. That's 35c per disc. That's like 8 or so cents per GB. Can't go wrong with DVD for storage as they've been tried and tested, are a stable medium and the cheapest.

Btw, I am confused about building a robotic arm but then wanting the cheapest blu ray discs? Wouldn't a robotic arm costs heaps?

One thing though about DVDR... properly stored they take up heaps of space. I'm running out so soon I'll have to decide whether to go for BR of HDs...

Moomin

thanks for all the replies
so pretty much, BD-R are out for my application, too expensive and possible media defects
so DVD*R it is

the reason I'll need a robot even though it's expensive is that it is a one time cost (under 2000$) in the long run I pay much less per GB, even if I make two copies of every backup dvd

also due to robots on the market sucking (not really made for making 100s of different DVDs, they are for mass duplication, not mass burning, so you have to prepare the device one image at a time, usually by feeding a master cd, which defeats the purpose in my case)

I'll probably make my own, there's a few basic ones on youtube, with 1K$ budget it shouldn't be hard to make something a lot more performant and reliable and pratical than what is on the market

Based on your observation, yes the cheapest is DVD (that's DVD SL).

Not too fast.

For 10TB data you have, you will need:

Harddrive: 10 of 1TB drives or 20 of 500GB drives.
DVD±R: around 2,500 discs (given file size difference)
BD-R: around 400 discs (given file size difference)

If you go with DVD+R DL, then it will most likely the same or more expensive than BD-R.

DVD±R might be cheaper but if you're OK with the storing 2,500 discs (around 500 spindles of 50pack) and trying to find particular files you need, then go for it.

I would consider harddrives but I definitely will look into blu-ray disc as storage, in your case.

I already have the 10TB of hdd, and they're full, and if I lose just one drive it'll be a disaster becaus there's no backup yet !!

I could make a raid 5 array, but this is just such a big amount of data that it's going to be hard to juggle it around while I'm reformating the drives

also I will make a simple piece of software that will spread files across the dvd to use as close as possible to the 4.7 Gb

I also have those small suitcase that contain 600 optical disc in a light-proof environement
( http://www.juno.co.uk/products/290345-01.htm )

and I'll have a big manifest of all the files on all the discs, searchable, so finding a file in case of a crash shouldn't be too hard

of course the hdd remain for quick access, I'll never use the dvds except as a source to restore a backup

the only thing I need now is to make that arm to feed the blanks to the drives (at least 4 drives) and possible a disc printer for easy identification

or else I'm going to spend at least 220 hours in front of the computer , feeding it dvds !

I've been seeing new 500GB drives going for ~$120 on sale (avoid the ~$100 refurbs, those are almost guaranteed to fail). For 10TB, that's about $2500.

A robot will be a lot lot lot slower and you'll end up with 2500 discs to deal with labeling and sorting, augh!

Yeah, once bd-r prices fall, esp. once 3+ layers become available, a robot would make sense for 10TB, but with DVD-Rs, it's not going to be fun.

-brendan