2tb storage/backup setup

[CoffeeFiend]

From what I've been reading, a 4 drive, 2tb (available) raid 5 isn't possible unless I use (I'm assuming) 750gig drives...

Using RAID5, your total storage is (size of drive)*(number of drives -1) as one is used for parity. In a 4 drive RAID5 setup, you'd only have 1.5TB using 500GB drives indeed.

So yeah, you could use 750GB drives (much more expensive in terms of $/GB). Or what I would personally do is stick to 500GB drives, and when those are full, throw in another controller, and 4 more drives (the coolermaster stacker 810 could work with up to 12 HDs using 3 RAID cards). By the time that 1.5TB is full, HD prices will be even lower, and at that time you can buy 750GB drives for cheap (or whatever's cheap at that time). Or you can also forget about using RAID5 if it's really a backup. The odds of the backup failing at the same time than the original storage it's backing up is very remote.

That being said, wouldn't I need more that 4 drives to achieve a true 2tb of available storage in raid 5?

Again, it depends on the size of drive. If you want 2TB with 4 drives (one for parity), then you need 2000GB/3 drives, or ~666GB per HD. 750GB drives would offer more space than that (2.25TB), or you could also use more than 4 drives (5x500GB in RAID5 is 2TB).

As for expandability, at this stage of the game I'm not concerned with that at all

if you're sure you're NEVER going to upgrade this, then I'd likely opt for a cheaper case (why spend 200$+ on a case if one under 100$ works fine?)

Does this help narrow it down any?

Yes, it sure does, but the how many drives and what size is still up to you. But with 4 or 5 drives, a standard/normal case with proper ventilation (preferably one 120mm on the HDs like the case I mentioned before) will do just fine - including reusing some old case you might already have, and most decent PSUs should be able to handle that just fine (again, why not reuse an existing one).

So:

-If you want 2TB, it's either 5x500GB (using 2 cards in non-RAID mode, and using the OS to make it a RAID5 array) or 4x750GB (using RAID on the card or the OS)

-One cheapo PCI SATA RAID card like that Sabrent one (or 2 if using 5 drives)

-Any case with 4 or 5 bays, and decent air flow/cooling (like the one I mentioned before), or an existing one

-Almost any half decent PSU, or an existing one

[dino213aa]

So:

-If you want 2TB, it's either 5x500GB (using 2 cards in non-RAID mode, and using the OS to make it a RAID5 array) or 4x750GB (using RAID on the card or the OS)

-One cheapo PCI SATA RAID card like that Sabrent one (or 2 if using 5 drives)

-Any case with 4 or 5 bays, and decent air flow/cooling (like the one I mentioned before), or an existing one

-Almost any half decent PSU, or an existing one

I heard somewhere that hardware controlled raid is better than software controlled. Is that true? If so, would that mean 4x750gb is a better option, even though it might cost more $/gb? I don't think I really care whether I use 4 or 5 drives... the number is not as important to me as properly implementing it.

So basically I'm looking at a case of my choosing (maybe that CM Stacker- there's one with a $50 bid on Ebay), 4x750 drives (at about $250 - $350 each), a PSU (should be around $100 - $150), and a RAID card (about $50). So if I play my cards right... the low end is about $1250 total and the high-end would be around $1600. Does that sound about right? Does the Sabrent controller handle 4x750gb?

Edited January 14, 2007 by dino213aa

[CoffeeFiend]

I heard somewhere that hardware controlled raid is better than software controlled. Is that true?

Real hardware RAID is less CPU intensive (especially for RAID5). However, your cheapo RAID card is NOT a hardware RAID solution, it's still the CPU doing all the heavy lifting. Want a real hardware 4 port SATA RAID card? It's not 40$ anymore, it's more like 300$ for the basic ones (options cost more, more ports costs more). Look at Areca or 3Ware if you want such cards. And you won't find any PCI ones, just PCI-X or PCI-e, so you'd also need a new motherboard or something along with it.

Between using the cards' BIOS to configure the array and using Windows' disk manager... It comes down to preferences really. It's somewhat easier to use the card itself to create a 4 drive array, but the drives will ONLY work on a similar card (should it ever fail, you will have to find the EXACT same thing). Whereas with Windows (using plain controllers), you put 'em in any old Windows box, and they'll work (perhaps a bit more work or complicated to create, but not very much)

Does the Sabrent controller handle 4x750gb?

Yes

Looks like you've figured out what you want though.

Edited January 14, 2007 by crahak

[DL.]

Putting 4x500 GB drives together just makes up 2TB of storage but no backup or redundancy whatsoever.

To obtain some redundancy you'll need a RAID array.

A RAID 10 (sometimes called 1+0) array will give you more redundancy, performance and be able to sustain multiple simultaneous drive failures as opposed to RAID 5. It's more expensive as you'll need 8x500 GB drives to get 2TB. RAID 5 on the other hand will need a more expensive controller card for higher performance but fewer drives. RAID 10 is not as demanding on the controller card as RAID 5, it's also a bit easier to setup and rebuild or expand.

RAID 10: 8x500 GB + cheap controller card

RAID 5: 5x500 GB + expensive controller card

Using 400 GB drives (10x400 instead of 8x500) will make it a bit cheaper (400 is cheaper per/GB than 500).

750 GB and 1 TB drives are too expensive per/GB right now so they are not an option.

Do you really need 2 TB of space (it's quite a lot)?

You could save very much by going with 1.6 TB (8x400 GB) or 1.5 TB (6x500 GB)

I would get a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive when they arrive or keep one extra HDD to be able to backup the really really important data in case something happens to the RAID array and/or the comp (burglary, accident or whatever).

When I buy a new comp I'll definitely go for a RAID 10 array combined with an additional drive or NAS as an extra safety measure.

[CoffeeFiend]

Putting 4x500 GB drives together just makes up 2TB of storage but no backup or redundancy whatsoever.

I think that was made already clear enough, about the redundancy thing. Mirroring and such doesn't count as "backups" though.

A RAID 10 (sometimes called 1+0) array will give you more redundancy, performance and be able to sustain multiple simultaneous drive failures as opposed to RAID 5.

Like he said before, speed is largely irrelevant for this setup. RAID 6 would also be a better pick than 10 here.

It's more expensive as you'll need 8x500 GB drives to get 2TB. RAID 5 on the other hand will need a more expensive controller card for higher performance but fewer drives. RAID 10 is not as demanding on the controller card as RAID 5, it's also a bit easier to setup and rebuild or expand.

RAID 10 being more expensive? For sure! RAID 5 requiring a more expensive controller? Only if you're going the hardware RAID way, which he isn't, so it's NOT the case.

So it's more like

RAID 10: 8x500 GB + cheap controller card = ~300$ more, counting HDs alone

RAID 5: 5x500 GB + cheap controller card

Using 400 GB drives (10x400 instead of 8x500) will make it a bit cheaper (400 is cheaper per/GB than 500).

500's aren't too bad. Considering the extra power more drives will use, you eventually pay the difference (and often more) in electricity (in AC too). More drives also mean a beefier PSU, or dual PSUs, and a larger case and more ventilation overall, and perhaps more controller cards for the extra ports if required (further negating the price advantage). And filling up a large case so quickly with smaller drives means less room to upgrade down the road, without throwing the old drives away (kind of like buying 512MB sticks nowadays, then having to remove them to upgrade to 1GB sticks later...)

There's always a fine line between getting the absolute cheapest $/GB and being stuck with countless small drives (which use power and create heat). 750GB and 1TB drives are too expensive though.

If 1.5TB will do for now, it's likely the best option (just add more cheap drives later)

I would get a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive when they arrive or keep one extra HDD to be able to backup the really really important data in case something happens to the RAID array and/or the comp

This is already supposed to be the backup. I'm no big fan of backuping backups. And Blu-Ray / HD DVD burners cost an arm and a leg, and so does the media. External HDs are far cheaper and are faster, and require no 1000$ drive (that nobody has yet) to work. Personally, I keep a cheap external hard drive at my dad's place (a few 100 KMs away) just in case the place burns down or something. One can just reuse and old drive with a total cost of 0$.

[dino213aa]

Do you really need 2 TB of space (it's quite a lot)?

Well, basically what I want to use this for is music, and more specifically for a hifi audio. The way I see it, in about two years I've maxed out my 500gb drive with about ~40,000 tracks of lossless audio (FLAC files). Since I have a big ole tax return coming, I'd like to not only upgrade my storage, but have some sort of safeguard against data loss. It also seems to me that it doesn't take a whole lot of performance or speed to load audio files... hence the reason I was considering the Buffalo NAS. I set the 2tb goal just because it seemed like that would tide me over for a while. I'm not really dead set on any one configuration, but whatever it is, I would prefer it put less load on my CPU. That's why the hardware RAID controller sounds attractive. I can't really decide on the best setup, but all of the input here has been really helpful.

[bonestonne]

40,000....thats plenty, i would know, all of my music is hi-fi, although its .mp3, most are just of CD, a few are remastered vinyls.

well, if you really want some good storage and backup, RAID wont do squat for you.

get 4 750GB drives, don't put the in raid, have them as internal drives. don't boot off any of them.

your IDE0 drive [aka the one you boot off] should be any other drive of your choice.

if windows ever gets corrupt, change the drive thats booting, and not a single song will have been touched.

i have about 22GB of music [which will be growing fast soon] because i work at a radio station. i understand the importance of backups, and how many are useful [we have one drive, and one server, and whenever it goes down, we're stuck on CDs]

being the music director, i take it as a personal duty to create ways to get around that issue.

if you want to do some intense backing up of all that music, you'll want to use JBOD, and that will take no less than eight 500GB drives. in all honesty, 2TB is a bit hard to really do, i would wait a while, and give the 1TB hard drives time to become more known.

then, just get 4, run them in JBOD, and you'll have 2TB of storage, and 2TB of backup.

[DL.]

@crahak:

I was just adding a few more alternatives and not necessarily stating direct suggestions, I must've missed your first post (or maybe read it too fast?) in this thread where you were talking about redundancy.

As you say, RAID isn't exactly "backup" but rather quite an easy and relatively cheap way of improving redundancy and data security without requiring extensive management.

I would also recommend 500 GB drives over 400:s in most cases, because of the things you mentioned. But 400 GB drives can be an alternative if the price is extremely important at the moment and the storage needs aren't that huge.

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD is an option yet, but they probably will be when the prices come down and availability is no longer a problem.

In the future using any of those new optical storage methods may be easier, faster and cheaper than tape drives for smaller backups (tape drives may still rule for larger ones).

As RAID is not really a backup, then making a backup of the most important data (very unique or something you absolutely wouldn't want to loose) stored on it might be good practice. However reusing an old drive might not be the best idea since the probability of it failing is most likely higher than that of a brand new drive; of course it depends on the age and previous usage of the old drive.

As bonestonne said it's not very easy to make backups of 2 TB of data today, you'll have to use hard drives or very expensive tape drives for that.

[CoffeeFiend]

making a backup of the most important data (very unique or something you absolutely wouldn't want to loose) stored on it might be good practice. However reusing an old drive might not be the best idea since the probability of it failing is most likely higher than that of a brand new drive; of course it depends on the age and previous usage of the old drive.

Well, what's the odds of my original data going bad or missing, same thing for the backup, and same to the off-site backup as well? I probably have more chances to be hit by lightning than that. My off-site backup HD is an "old" 200GB drive (large enough for family photos and such stuff that can't be replaced), although lots of that is also on several DVD copies (my dad likes to have copies of my photos, so I mail him copies on Taiyo Yuden DVDs).

I've also considered using Blu-Ray or HD DVD for backups at some point, but right now the media alone costs more per GB than HDs... And by the time it's affordable enough, and drives affordable, I'm only going to have more stuff to backup. And it's already not very practical. Backing up almost 4TB on 25GB Blu-Ray media (@ ~1$/GB, and single-use no less!) would already take 160 discs. By the time the drives are affordable (a couple years or so), I'll likely need 300 or more. And by the time larger media is available and cheap, I'm also going to have more storage, so it still won't help much. It's not very cost effective, and requires manually changing a LOT of discs, and storing all those individually somewhere.

As for tape, the idea is good, but the prices aren't. Big tapes and the tape drives (or tape libs) required to use 'em cost an arm and a leg, and the prices aren't coming down anytime soon (longer rant about those in the other 2TB backup thread). As for Blu-Ray, it's currently cheaper to use external USB2 HDs to do backups.

dino213aa: I wouldn't worry too much about expensive hardware RAID cards. It's not like streaming music is going to put any kind of load on any modern CPU. It's a very low speed/bandwidth thing. If you were doing AV editing in RAID0 or using it in a high-load server environment in RAID5 or something it would be a must, but for this, there's just no need to spend that much (and again, the hardware RAID cards aren't PCI, so new motherboard too). I've been dreaming of an Areca ARC-1230 card for ages, but I just can't justify the cost (~1000$ with 1GB ECC SoDimm cache, ~100$ more for battery module, add exchange rate, tax/customs clearance, shipping, etc, so roughly 1500$ CDN)

Edited January 15, 2007 by crahak

[Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa]

What I do is store a backup of everything on Disc may it be CD or DVD and wrap paper around the discs and keep them in a box safe in the dark that is not damp nore hot hopefully. I am really trying to keep it cheap since if I did went all out and store everything on

Mostly movies and videos. I really want to convert my stored film into MPEG-1 or whatever that is readable on most VCD players and any DVD players. VCD is the final solution DVD is just overkill to be honest.

Use DVD-R for storage since all DVD players will read DVD-R. DVD+R is kinda weird the fact that DVD+R claims to be erasable but why would you want to do that to a DVD when somebody out there could probably recover the data.

I wish I could say to store purely on DVD but when I think about it CD is really the main storage medium even if it is costly. Still your storing RAW data I would use DVD.

If you want something difrent that is rarely used try Giga discs/GD-R that store up to 1GIG or Laserdiscs.

Okay like I was mentioning earlier about ram storage that is my next destination in LIVE storage. My HD a 100 GIG that I use as my download center along with any other HD from time to time will lose data. Like recently I lost the entire collection of C64 programs and N64 programs backups that I had stored but never got around to moving them.

Personally I could careless since I push my drive everyday to download something new and diffrent. Personally when I had my drive full the drive had more energy problems. Right now my drive is around 10% free and there is no problems.

I was thinking about the 2Terrabyte drives they had back in the late 90's but I can see the price is to much and probably is still too much.

Even if you use a HD to backup stuff the problem is that HD is like a record player or the tin foil Airline flight recorders. They are all one a needle allways moving.

[CoffeeFiend]

Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa: all on DVDs? Perhaps you don't have much stuff to backup then (seems so: a single 100GB HD)! Or perhaps you don't realize how much stuff 2TB really is. Keeping stuff on DVD quickly becomes a TOTAL and absolute nightmare IMO. Backing up 2TB on DVDs takes like 500 DVDs or so. That would take pretty much eternity to do even just monthly backups that way, a few minutes to burn each disc, and having to be there to swap the media, repeat 500x (I'd be able to it if I quit my job to do that full time perhaps!) Even just having stuff (not backups) on DVD was already a nightmare. Had ~2000 discs of just video contents alone, and when I wanted to check something, I often had to search for it a very long time (no matter how well I try to organize/catalog stuff), sometimes giving up after an hour (hence the video server! a true god send!).

And DVD(+ or -)R is not rewritable (only the RW stuff is), so you'd have to buy 10 new spindles every time you'd want a backup. With monthly backups that'd be ~120 spindles a year, which would cost MORE than using HDs in the first place (besides the media swapping/storage hell). And discs are easily scratched (and lots of organic dye based media deteriorates and such). And going thru 120 spindles a year makes for a LOT of discs to store somewhere (or lots going to the landfill). Rewritable discs are even more expensive and slower (and add erasing time to every disc...)

I gave up on the "countless large CD wallets full of DVDs" thing a while ago and couldn't be happier. Using HDs is so much better in every aspect: stuff immediately available and automatically sorted in any order you please, trivial to organize, copying and backup jobs take seconds to start (try recopying 2k DVDs and tell me how long it took!), stuff available from anything networked (from any PC on network or even via internet or via VPN, playable over network by XBMC, etc), no CD wallet mess, no scratched discs (got kids?), backup/sync jobs can be automated (totally transparent, take no time at all, set once and forget - even nightly backups are no work at all), you can take advantage of many useful technologies (such as Distributed File System, Volume Shadow Copy Service, BITS and Single Instance Storage), it can integrate/interact with other things (like a handy file router app), the drives are reusable (no erase time either, no disc swapping, or anything like that), etc.

Seriously, I'd pick ANYTHING over the DVD solution. From a ghetto and overpriced NAS, to external USB2/FW HDs, RAID array (any level!) in any old box, SAN of any type (software based or using fibre channel hardware or anything), tapes (*shudder*), to Windows Home Server and everything else.

And as far as I'm concerned VCD = Very Crappy Disc, and DVD itself is just OK (720p is FAR better! 1080p would be nicer, but interlacing? No thanks!) H.264 (and mpeg4 in general) is where it's at!

And, I've never heard of 2TB drives being available in the 90's at any price (or size)... That was more like 2GB drives back then (I remember paying like 250$ for a 1.28GB Quantum Fireball in '95). They JUST came out with 1TB drives this month (Hitachi) - you can't even buy 'em yet.

Edited January 15, 2007 by crahak

[puntoMX]

... They JUST came out with 1TB drives this month (Hitachi) - you can't even buy 'em yet.

Indeed, Seagate too will have them in a few months...

For the people who want to read more, look here.

@ Glent, why do you think that Hitachi "DeathStars" are unreliable? They are not getting that hot any more then a few years ago .

Edited January 15, 2007 by puntoMX

[Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa]

A pack of 100 DVD discs can store from 400 to 470 Gigabytes or so . That is like 20 dollars per pack now.

Personally the idea of HD is wrong. No matter how much you try HD is not the answer.

Yes for a Entertanment center it might be okay but over time the HD will age. Again the work place requires you to make backup copies of porgrams, and the music industry literially records everything to Tape, Disc, or whatever. I had to many outages already using HD alone.

On the topic of storing 4gig files I just don't. You can convert files to othe forms of media. Also Mpeg on a VCD is really nice. It looks just as great if it was on DVD and can play on various player rather then the DVD player alone.

I have my stuff my on CD and DVD since I can just access what I want when I want. I have dreams to acomplish and playing around with my files is not the only thng my life. Yes in the past I would download like crazy and back up since the days of AOL 4.0 . So all this hypo storage is not new to me.

Even afterwards I got bored. I think I am over 2TB already stored on disc. Whenever I want to use something I will just access the discs.

I still think all DVD+R is rewritable. I am not apart of any afiliation of DVD so I would not know. About Organic dye I use regualr discs and store them in papers. It cost like $3 for a pack of 200 or so Recycled Paper. All the discs seeems to work otherwise I would have to use a disc recovery tool which works 99% of the time with barely anything to the naked eye missing.

Going threw disc for me is easy since I label the disc paper. leaving a simple mark on the paper is good enough so that I am able to find everything easy.

No disc swapping and easy backups? yes it might look easy but the truth is that all you did was move data from one drive to another. No single computer is going to hold all the data you would ever need. I am thinking about the children and my grand children. They will not be using my HD 24/7 they will have USB sticks/spheres/Flash and to be honest Discs are much safer then a HD.

The real reason I am using Discs over HD for long term storage is that I had a dream. I was using a Nail gun and for some reason I just nailed a couple threw my drive and then it just came to me. Not only is the HD a victim of easy damage but all data is in one place.

This means while children could be playing frisbie with my discs. It would be worst if they would be carrying my HD and drop it. Can you image your child being ask to bring that HD from the counter only to drop it. I have dropped many discs all over the place and they might have cracked but at least they still work. If you drop a HD there is chance that is the end of your HD. Image a earth quake and your PC starts rolling around the place and keels over like a freight train. The HD might be damaged along witjh all your data.

Keeping data spread is better then keeping data in one area. If it is all over then a sacrafice here and there would not matter but in one place that would be game over. Divide and conquer

About pi this and i that personally that is bulltar. Data is encoded on a computer then stored on disc. All you need is to encode the data correctly and you should be able to store it on a CD.

Laser Discs had RAW/Analog data written on it. Then when it was viewed via television it was more about the TV hadware. VCD/DVD will allways look good since it is encoded and the player is using codecs to play the file.

Yes there was TB drives and they are around the size of regualr HD drives but a bit bigger. They costed like $4000 in most cases. If you are lucky you might be able to find one in a company pc in a yard sale.

The thing is back in 95 the public was new to the whole computer thing. So you buying a 2gig for $250 is like people buying 2TB drives.

Loigically if they are selling TB drives to the public they are selling higher storage mediums to companies.

What I learn is to never settle for less and that while you can take the easy route. the harder route is more rewarding. This is why storing on CD is rewarding then storing data 24/7 on HD.

[Zxian]

A pack of 100 DVD discs can store from 400 to 470 Gigabytes or so . That is like 20 dollars per pack now.

Personally the idea of HD is wrong. No matter how much you try HD is not the answer.

And then the discs get scratched, or the chemicals in the discs deteriorate, or you've forgotten where you put something... Like crahak already said, indexing that many DVDs properly is a major pain in the rear.

I won't trust anything of mine to anything but disk nowadays. Anything really important goes on my 80GB RAID1 as my backup, and everything else is just mirrored to somewhere else on my network. When I get a little more money (probalby after I graduate in April), I'm going to be buying myself a simple 4 or 6 port SATA RAID controller and tossing on several 500GB drives there in RAID5. I'm guessing that it'll cost me almost $1000 or so, but it'll give me a little more piece of mind when it comes to my data, and with 5 year warranties on Seagate drives (or enterprise level WD), that's $200 per year to make sure that 2TB of data (LOTS of space) is stored safely.

Oh... and then there's the 200GB that I get from my webhosting... for $8/month...I spend way more than that on coffee - sometimes even in a day!

[CoffeeFiend]

Personally the idea of HD is wrong. No matter how much you try HD is not the answer.

Well, that's an opinion. I personally think it's the absolute and very best.

Yes for a Entertanment center it might be okay but over time the HD will age.

HDs age, so does writable media (which is also very scratch prone). Both have a very decent lifespan and reliability, but eventually you want to recopy it all to a newer storage medium. With DVDs, you'll manually be copying thousands of DVDs. With HDs, you plug the new ones in, and a couple seconds after your copying job is started (no interaction required). I think HDs clearly win here.

Also Mpeg on a VCD is really nice. It looks just as great if it was on DVD and can play on various player rather then the DVD player alone.

And I think we can all throw in a couple bucks towards an eye exam VCDs are truly god awful compared to DVDs (which already aren't great, High Def is where it's at!) Crappy old inefficient and featureless codecs at very low resolutions and low bitrates - not a recipe for quality.

I have my stuff my on CD and DVD since I can just access what I want when I want.

You can, as soon as you get around to find that one discs you're looking for. I've tired of spending all my free time looking for stupid discs and trying to reorganize all the time to make it easier... And still have to look for stuff for ages. Eventually you have to put all these discs somewhere too - it does take a fair amount of space, gotta dust it all the time and such. No thanks!

I still think all DVD+R is rewritable

You're entitled to think so, but it ISN'T rewritable, just writable (once). DVD+RW is, though.

About Organic dye I use regualr discs and store them in papers.

~99% of regular discs use organic-based dye, and will degrade over time. It's very sensitive to temperature and light (especially UV). Just don't be surprised when you realize your discs can't be read anymore (it WILL happen!) You start getting read errors (not so noticeable on DVDs because of the extra error correction bits), jitter, glitches in audio and such, and eventually you can't read it anymore. I wouldn't store anything on those that you can't afford to lose. At least decent media like Taiyo Yuden (metallic based dye) will last (even though it will scratch just as easily)

No single computer is going to hold all the data you would ever need. I am thinking about the children and my grand children. They will not be using my HD 24/7 they will have USB sticks/spheres/Flash and to be honest Discs are much safer then a HD.

No single computer can hold all the data i will EVER need. No medium will EVER be able to do this. But they can hold sufficient storage, and that's what matters. Given a large enough case (or using shelving like some are doing), you can have a few dozen HDs on a computer. Along with the new upcoming TB HDs that makes for more terabytes than I could use for a VERY long time (even dumping raw HD DVD images on it). And no, discs are NOT safer than a HD - much the inverse! At least you don't manipulate HDs all the time, so they don't get dirty, scratched, you never drop them and all that. I've lost countless CDs and DVDs over the years, yet very few HDs.

The real reason I am using Discs over HD for long term storage is that I had a dream. I was using a Nail gun and for some reason I just nailed a couple threw my drive and then it just came to me. Not only is the HD a victim of easy damage but all data is in one place.

A HD is not an easier victim of damage than any disc - again, quite the inverse. The HDs are safe inside a metal tower somewhere. Discs can VERY easily be scratched or damaged in countless ways. Flimsy little plastic stuff you always have in your hands. Again, just look at any rental DVDs - if that's not damage...

This means while children could be playing frisbie with my discs. It would be worst if they would be carrying my HD and drop it.

But they don't have to carry a HD to play something (that's the very point of having a video server). It sits inside a computer.

Image a earth quake and your PC starts rolling around the place and keels over like a freight train. The HD might be damaged along witjh all your data.

Well, that's a bit dramatic, but anyways. I've only seen one earthquake in my life (and it was minor - PCs didn't move or anything). But they can take quite a bit more than you seem to believe. Want something more plausible? Like a house fire or such (we see that like everyday on the news)? DVDs won't survive ether. Regardless of all this, I'm not too worried about what will make it or not thru a major disaster (as long as well all survive), and should it ever happen, I've got a HD off-site (at my dad's place), so my very important data's safe anyways.

Keeping data spread is better then keeping data in one area. If it is all over then a sacrafice here and there would not matter but in one place that would be game over. Divide and conquer

Disagree on that. Having it all together is far better. Centralization and organization is a good thing. In the very unlikely even that a HD dies, you use the backup. It's a non-issue.

Yes there was TB drives and they are around the size of regualr HD drives but a bit bigger. They costed like $4000 in most cases. If you are lucky you might be able to find one in a company pc in a yard sale.

ROFL. Care to back those claims? Back then it would have been physically IMPOSSIBLE to accomplish this, due to the low densities of the time. And for 4000$ worth of HDs, you had a little over 20GB worth of space (give or take a bit, depending on the exact year). Again, drives that size just came out this month, using perpendicular recording and VERY HIGH densities. If they had terabyte HDs for 4000$ back then, I would've bought one, and I'm sure tons of other people would have. And it wouldn't have taken until this year to see drives this size on the market, and we wouldn't have been stuck with so tiny drives for all that time. Even very large hard drives of the time (like VAX'es) weren't anywhere near a terabyte. Again, any sources to back up those frivolous claims?

So you buying a 2gig for $250 is like people buying 2TB drives.

I can't make any sense of that sentence, no matter how hard I try

Loigically if they are selling TB drives to the public they are selling higher storage mediums to companies.

Actually, they aren't selling TB drives to the public yet (soon enough they will though). And no, companies don't magically have a source of bigger HDs. I work for a very large company, and we use the same HDs as everybody else does. The one special thing we use though is high quality, server-class 15k rpm SCSI 320 drives though (they're just very fast and reliable, but no bigger). Even right now, at this very instant, terabyte HDs can't be bought, so a decade ago...

the harder route is more rewarding. This is why storing on CD is rewarding then storing data 24/7 on HD.

If you find the pain of having to search, sort, burn, catalog, reorganize, recopy DVDs and all that rewarding... Then sure, Why not?