I think Sony's Optical Disc Archive cartridge is the best consumer digital storage solution

2 months ago by mountainRadish to c/datahoarder

They want us on clouds paying for a subscription. Otherwise these cartridges which can hold terabytes and last for 50+ years would be dirt cheap like your ex.

A cabinet like device where it has an arm to change tbe cartridges, and a software/ssd to view metadada, thumbnail, video preview is all a family needs... I think

I want to preserve data but it is hard and costly.

Bonus: imagine if the software would help you pic archival grade file formats and warn you when a file format is going obsolete.

There is a cool software I use called Wincatalog.

Cuckoo out

TropicalDingdong 5 points 2 months ago

I mean at that point why not go actually nutz and get into tape drives?

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mountainRadish 0 points 2 months ago

Because I believe for home use optical disc in a cartridge is easier.

*I might be wrong, but I remember LTO tape must be stored at certain RH and condition.

And they last for 30 years, maybe

And VHS tapes. Ade the idea of a tape around a spool feeels like it is not as robust as a disc.

Having said that, iffff consumer version of lto tape drives was out there it would be as cool.

But I still feel discs are more safer.

You see, I could salvage archival optical disc if I got flooded or if they went through extreme temperature.

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TropicalDingdong 3 points 2 months ago

My understanding is that tape drives are still the basic thing for long term storage, and that they are more robust for long term storage than disc drives. And way, way, way, cheaper. I used to work at a company that like, we had so many bankers boxes of hard drives laying around, we actually got in trouble with fire dept for them blocking the hallway a bit. So that could be an option, that is, hot swappable drives.

My home server is a 42 tb nas. It cost me about 1k to set up and honestly it's been very worth it.

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mountainRadish -1 points 2 months ago

I think NAS is great for techies but optica disc storage is better option for family memories and stuff.

A NAS need maintenance and can get expensive.

LTO tape take a lot of care, I just read about it again.

It needs proper storage and maintenace and even then it last for 30 years.

Optical media last 50+ years and storage conditions is just normal home climate. I think for childhood memories, important documents, wedding videos is a perfect medium.

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WhyJiffie 0 points 2 months ago

A NAS need maintenance and can get expensive.

not because of the hardware.

LTO tape take a lot of care, I just read about it again.

It needs proper storage and maintenace

just like optical disks

Optical media last 50+ years and storage conditions is just normal home climate.

that's not what I read. fewer years, sensitive to dust, temperature changes through thermal expansion, sensitive to sunlight, to humidity because of molding. sensitivity to movements, because if you store them in those spinner boxes, they will scratch each other as they spin when you move the box around.

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solrize 3 points 2 months ago

This sounds cool but apparently it's discontinued?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Disc_Archive

https://obsoletemedia.org/optical-disc-archive/

Quick web search didn't find the drive cost but you can get LTO-6 or LTO-7 drives relatively affordably if you're into such storage. Meanwhile, more recent LTO generations seem to have shot up in price, maybe following DRAM and hard discs, ugh.

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mountainRadish 0 points 2 months ago

LTO is too complicated for someone like me.

Obtaining used drive is the only choice and it is still expensive... I think.

And magentic tape can store more.dafa but I think a cartridge with several optical disk is way more reliable because the data don't habe to move around a spool or something.

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unitedwithme 1 point 2 months ago

Why don't you buy a BD-ROM drive and burn around 50GB data to those? Then they have those drive cases that'll hold around 100 discs on a soft sleeve, easy to store, lightweight, but takes manual moving. But of you're prose is archival/backup, that's the way to go.

I've got stacks of DVD-ROM discs from almost 20 years ago that hold 4.7GB data each iirc and have flip phone pictures and video on just to not waste space on a backup hard drives that's not likely to fail. I do have a BD-ROM drive now but never cared to pull data from disc to HDD, then reburn multiple onto 1 or 2 BD discs. Would make sense to do it as it'll reset the preservation clock, be ~$100 drive, and last about 30 years.

You're looking for inexpensive, long term, low technical skill. And I give you a solution that doesn't require giving Sony money outside of royalties for blu ray tech.

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