Camera Labs

General Electric has unveiled an optical disc which can store 500 Giga bytes of data (equivalent to 500 CDs or 100 DVDs) on a single disc.


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SX10IS
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Sorry to say, but I really can't be bothered that much by optical disc any more. I haven't used a writeable dvd for years, so I don't think I will use a 500GB disc any time soon.

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www.pimvandevelde.com

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Hey, I want one. No, hold on, what am I saying - I want two.

Seriously, there's one problem with all these there new-fangled doodads. I wonder how many users of those old magneto-optical discs still have the hardware necessary to access their archives.

NASA had a variation on that problem when access to the Pioneer spacecraft navigational data was needed. For more check out 30 Years of Pioneer Spacecraft Data Rescued:
The Planetary Society Enables Study of the Mysterious Pioneer Anomaly.

So I'll stick with my current strategy of backing up to hard drives via Ethernet and/or USB and storing at least one backup in a fire safe. Failure rates should be very low if the drives aren't powered, valuable data can be backed up twice and the cost per megabyte is about as low as it gets.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Writing huge amounts of data to a disc is not a very enjoyable thing for me either. But given that they are cheap (I mean the 4.7GB ones) and we do need space in our hard drives (provided they are filled up frequently - my 750GB drives do) and we value our data, we can't deny that optical discs are invaluable for data backup and storage. And with the advent of new technology, the prices of current discs are likely to get down which is good news for most people.

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SX10IS
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Hey Bob, you posted while I was replying to the earlier one.

Hardware compatibility? Well, If you have the hardware to fill-up 500GB to 2 - 3 TB of data in a couple of months or so, you are very unlikely to face that problem. Possibly a new writer will suffice. But just for the record, this particular technology is still not out in the market, and when it does, it won't be for the masses. Now, if you rarely use the disc, it can have a long life too. And besides, you never know which technology performs the best until you try it. Hard drives have been very reliable so far, but who knows when they are over taken by discs? For VERY important data though, multiple backups in different places are recommended. Additionally may be RAID 7?

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I think I misunderstood you a little. If you are worried about the discs getting outdated, I think HDD may serve you a little longer. But you do agree that for not-too-important-but-cool stuff you wouldn't want to take out that drive from your safe and put the junk there?

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SX10IS
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It'll be too expensive when it is out. By the time it gets affordable it'll be too small. Just like DVD and blu-ray. I rarely write those now except for the odd linux install. Hard disks seem to be the sweet spot for capacity and density. Give it 10 years or so I suspect SSDs will finally replace them in cost/capacity.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

DVD's are slowly becoming obsolete because, once again, Sony has brought a new standard, this time being BlueRay.

I look forward to buying a 100 disk reel of 19GB bluray disks for the same price as DVDs.

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a900 | D700

19GB bluray disks...

I thought they were nearer 40GB now.


SSD's are the way forward, I've said it for years.

[Hybrid Hard Disk Drives] HHDD's never picked up, HDD's with some (8GB+) SSD storage - Suppose skipping straight to SSD will help lower costs quicker though.


1TB SSD's are reliative affordable, $4,000 or so for ones on the PCI-E or PCI-X bus - over 600MB/s read write speeds, some in excess of 1000MB/s!! For the people who need that kind of speed, $4k isn't much to cough up.

Good thing is more they are used instead of HDD's, then the cheaper they will get since the economies of scale comes into play.




I'm looking forward to BioStorage though.

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

If you cut a hologram in half you'll have 2 smaller holograms (clones). The true question is, is our equipment sensitive enough to read that smaller fraction?

In theory, a (not so dense) 15 GB hologram would blow a RAID system out of the water in terms of reliability. Read speeds are another story though.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Problem solved

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SX10IS
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