Blu-ray?

[Cody]

I admit I am not a fan of blu-ray movies as I don't see enough of a difference to warrant the extra cost of the movie and player... However, I do have some things on my computer I would like to have backed up on discs. Mostly Steam games and, of course, pictures! Four gigabyte DVDs are just impractical. Has anyone had any experience with burning blu-ray discs? Is it worth the absurd cost for backup purposes?

[Nick]

What are you watching them on? I noticed a clearer picture on our big screen (before it died last watching captain America. But that is my only experience. Blue Ray disks and drives are not, for me, cheap enough to use as archival medium. You can get a 500 gb drive for the price of just the blue ray burner, add 100gb worth of disks and you can have a terabyte for that price. So... Just get a terabyte external on sale and call it good.

[Cody]

I am not sure if I have even watched a Blu-Ray movie. Perhaps what I should have said is that I have no problem with the quality of DVDs. Maybe because I prefer to watch movies for their story not their shiny CGI.

But I agree that an external hard drive seems a bit more logical. I was kind of trying to get away from the whole hard drive thing to a more hard copy backup but that probably isn't really necessary. Especially for the price at this time. Any suggestions? I looked on Newegg but couldn't decide between 1 and 2 TB. Some of the 2TB drives are only about $20 more.

[Nick]

The more you buy, the lower the price per gigabyte. But do you need 2tb? Will one one day? Will there be 10tb drives available by the time you need two?

That said I paid $80 for my 750gb a year ago.

[Cody]

Well, I have 410 GB of Steam games I would like to back up, about 110 GB of pictures, and 40 GB of music. I suppose that adds up to just over half the drive space. Hard to say what else it could get used for in the future.

[Nick]

Go for the 2tb perhaps then. There will be more games and pictures :-) perhaps video or something too in the future.

[Nick]

If you don't mind your external being a full-sized one and needing a power supply to work (I personally prefer the convenience of the laptop sized drives or smaller) There is a two terabyte drive on sale at NewEgg for $89.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178116
Promo code: EMCYTZT2889

[Cody]

I do like the look and price of that one. Seems like something I could just have sitting behind my monitor and not really worry about. Could almost  just use it more like another internal drive to give myself more space.

[Nick]

$79 for a USB 3 portable 1 TB drive (no need for a power cord, but slightly slower then a full sized drive)

promo code EMCXVXN52

[zourtney]

Not directly related...but we need to revive the distributed picture backup initiative...

[Nick]

Via the mail ( sneaker-net )? Or via some generous allotment of online storage?


Edit. Hard drives seem to be getting cheap again. 2.5tb for $70 shipped.