How risky is saving all ISO in one BD_R DL?

I have way too many software in CDs and DVDs but I need them all. I am planning to create ISO images from all of them and save them all in one 50GB Blu-ray DL disc. I would then throw the CDs and DVDs away.

How risky is this strategy? Am I risking too much by storing all my software in one disc?

 

Why not organize the old DVDs and put them in storage in an out of the way corner while using the Blu-ray as the primary? That way you have backups and everything is convenient.

 

Wow. That's what I'd do if I had a BD-Writer. But then again if the disk isn't stored properly, then that might be the end of your softwares.

I wouldn't worry, though, if I could store a single-disk all-in-one installer in a very safe place. (Think a fireproof safe lol)

 

i've put all my disks as iso onto my windows home server. you have no external hdd or network storage or homeserver?

i'd suggest to get an external 2.5" hdd instead of burning to bluray. more storage, not much higher cost, and more flexiblity.

and the originals, put them in a box, and put the box away to some safe place.

 

A SATA USB dock would also be a good option since it can be set up semi-permanent and then different drives can be slapped in it for different needs.

On a slightly more portable note there's always a 64GB USB flash key.

 

jup. good ideas.

having such a dock is always great. one doesn't need it often, but there's always that moment where one thinks ****, i should have buyed that dock

 

I love my dual dock. Quick and easy drive imaging and backups. Have five spare hard drives (500GB, 320GB, 250GB, 250GB, 160GB) used as precautionary extra backups of important info (mainly pics and music). I keep them separate from my existing computer stuff, and plan on backups to these every month or two.

But hell, if you have a BR writer, use it! TBH if you plan on using it, make two copies, and store them separately. I've lost data before, and after that I am so paranoid. Probably have TOO many backups to be honest. But now that I have WHS, it makes life SOOO much better.

 

Optical media is too slow, and so many things won't have a BD drive.
I have a 120GB WD Passport with all of my ISOs on it, and I back that up to my file server. That way, all my eggs aren't in one basket.

I trust optical media less than I trust hard drives, and I keep redundancy on all of my hard drives.

So I'd say your idea is very risky, and IMO doesn't have too huge of a benefit either.

 

I say go with either the 64GB flash drive, or the external hard drive. I just have a second hard drive in my computer for all my backups, but then again, I'm on a desktop.

 

DIR-655 router with the USB port and a 2.5" 500GB WD Passport (or a regular external, prefer one without an on/off switch) FTW!

 

Old S939 system with 2x1.5TB RAID 1 FTW

 

i liked the question of the topic,
i really trust storage devices by this order
-hard disk
-cd
-dvd
-blueray
here is my reasons , hard disk first place because only one hard disk failed through my whole life and it was my fault , 2nd place cd i trust it more than DVD because if u put 10gb on cds and 1 cd got damaged u only lose 700mb of data , but if u lost 1 dvd then u lost 4.7 gb of data , blue ray is the worst nightmare for me , i lose one blue ray then i lose 50gb of data OMG OMG OMG , i don't have a blue ray any way so i am not worried

 

Not that risky if you make a copy or two, and only used a certain one when needed.

 

@LIVEfrmnyc i like the idea of making 2 copies

 

An ideal backup wouldn't involve any optical media. For me ideal would be:

(1) Windows Home Server
(2) Remote Home Server (at parents or siblings home)
(3) External backup hdd
(4) Remote backup hdd

I am actually considering using one of my old Shuttles as an alternate WHS box and putting it at my parents home. This way I can backup most critical data from my WHS to their machine in case my house blows up or something.

 

How risky is putting all of your eggs in one basket when you have no way of getting another basket and you've thrown away the chicken?

Tossing original software install discs just because you don't have 6" of space to save them is kind of stooopid.

 

Backing up large amount of data in a BR disc should be slow as hell. I wouldn't recommend it. Get a external hard drive.

 

Did that. But as they life near to me, I even plan on putting a third box far away to our holiday appartment. That's 200km from here => if we have an earthquake here (unlikely, but not impossible), I still have all my data.

My dad filled a 4.5TB Homeserver by itself. I will soon have a 4TB Homeserver (waiting for a 2TB disk right now).


The rule nr. one about backup: Redundancy! The rule two: Redundancy stored at different Places.

Never toss your old disks. Even if you put them at your parents home at the pavement oder so, doesn't matter. don't toss them.

 

I can't speak to prices in CH, but this afternoon at the local MicroCenter I saw a pile of Seagate FreeAgent drives. The 1Tb drives were $99- Not bad for a fully self-contained setup.

 

1.5tb disks are 120$ here. those are internal disks, though.

 

There are disks out there that have hidden data and stuff that may not rip to an iso properly, like the installer tells the computer to check X location for something and if you do this method to put it all on one disk its not going to work..

Also having them as .iso files on a disk means you cant just put in a computer and have it run you will need a virutual hdd to mount the .iso to so that it loads as a disk.

Keep in mind BR is the least durable of all optical media, its more data dense than HD DVD, so dense that they had to make the protective plastic layer on the disk thinner so that the laser could read it correctly.

I would definitely not do this, if anything I would make a backup of them on a external hdd and just keep the more important original disks archived somewhere.

Also you can think about installing all of the ones you know you use and then use a backup software to save an image of that installation. Restoring an image is much faster than installing stuff again and you wont need to know the serial keys, and all that stuff.

 

Yeah, 1TB extrnals for $100 aren't a bad deal. I got 4 1TB WD Caviar Black for $89 each for my WHS. Wish I bought the green ones though, it's just that they cost the same and thought "ooh, 1TB WD Black for $89!" and didn't even think about power consumption. You don't need the fastest drives for WHS. Oh well.

Probably within a year (probably less) I'll start replacing my 1TB's with 2TB's once they drop in price ($100 is my price point) and get green ones.

 

jup, the green ones are really silent and have a low power draw. important if you have several of them running all day long.

btw, pics of your server?

 

I trust discs more than external drives. I still have discs from over 6 yrs ago that work perfectly, and some of those I didn't even take much care of. I can't count how many times external drives gave me a headache. External drives IMO are good for regular usage and backups, but for longtime storage I would trust it. Maybe SSDs will change that.

 

check out the disks i've burned. about none of those can't be trusted anymore. none..

so the only real way is >1 hdd. espencially cost/size wise.

and sticks die on me all the time, as they're often cheap produced..

 

What usually dies is the enclosure, not the drive inside.

 

Enclosure how? I'm clueless on that.

All I know is I've experienced too many corrupted files and sometimes a corrupted drive relying on external HDs. I mean corrupted as a loose term.

Not to say I haven't experienced the same with Disc, but it happens much less frequently and I always easily make copies of my discs. The only reason I still use a external HD is for the space, but I plan on switching to a SSD external soon.

 

What do you mean how? I don't know, but 9/10 time when someone brings me a failed hard drive I can pull the drive out of the enclosure and it works fine in another enclosure or in a computer. I think many enclosures just use cheap electronics that die.

 

The problems I been experiencing are with the actual HD, many times I've taken it out the enclosure and hooked to my desktop and still problems. I don't even trust WD external HD's anymore for many reasons, some which they admit to but fail to warn consumers.

 

WD uses a proprietary format on their enclosures. You have to put it in an identical enclosure or delete the partition and create a new one in computer management to make it usable again.
I don't use WD externals either for this reason.

 

I've had CDR's and DVDR's go bad a lot more often than hard drives, but I've had both circumstances. Burnable media has a questionable lifetime, although accelerated age tests put them at about 30 years, although that's just temperature and humidity variation.

Nobody really knows when subjected to real world, real time conditions. Plus, the written and readable surface of burnable media can be touched, unlike hard drives.

Additionally, people are much more likely to update their hard drives and transfer the media to the new hard drive, unlike CD's or DVD's that sit there for years on end. Probably 10-12 years ago I stored most of my data on CD-R's. I used them periodically to retrieve info that I didn't want on my hard drive, well because hard drives weren't what they were today. Needless to say after 3-4 years several of them I couldn't pull data from any more, and lost quite a bit of personal stuff.

Hard drives tend to give indication that they're failing and you can usually pull all your data from them if you react quickly. Plus external drives are a simple, effortless, redundant backup medium. If you PC hard drive fails, restore quickly from the backup. If your backup fails, repopulate from your PC's.

I'd trust a 3.5" drive external enclosure (i.e. MyBook) over a 2.5" one. Those 2.5" ones are portable, jostled around a lot more, and rely on the power from the USB port that might be flaky.

 

All good points htwingnut, but consider one thing:
A 2.5" drive is only jostled if you jostle it. If you keep it on your desk the way you would keep a 3.5" external there, you've got a much more resilient drive (higher shock tolerance, much higher life expectancy as far as hours and spin ups/spin downs go)

 

Unless you live in an active fault zone, of course!

 

Good save.
But I think you'd want a drive with higher shock tolerance even more if you did

 

You mean shock like this?



Or perhaps the one in my sig?