128GB BDXL Blu-ray - Extra Large, Extra Incompatible

A

admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
On Friday the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced the finalization and release of the specifications for BDXL, the new multi-layer recordable Blu-ray Disc format with up to 128GB of capacity. Rather than a new movie format, it is targeting commercial segments such as broadcasting, medical and document imaging enterprises with significant archival needs. BDXL will be offered as write-once and rewritable 100GB (triple-layer) discs, and write-once 128GB (quadruple-layer) discs.


Discuss "128GB BDXL Blu-ray - Extra Large, Extra Incompatible" here. Read the article.
 
T

thomaco

Audiophyte
Fragile???

Most of us in the IT industry consider hard drives, and particularly solid-state drives, as being far more fragile than optical storage. That is the reason companies are investing so much into developing high density optical storage.
 
M

mredhorsey

Audiophyte
There have been several media reports about the potential for an EMP attack, or an EMP burst caused by a massive solar flare. In either case, the potential exists to destroy sensitive electronics like hard drives. I recently purchased a blu-ray burner that can burn these 128 GB discs. One of the main reasons was so that I can back up critical files to optical storage that is impervious to damage from EMP incidents. It may be months or years after an EMP incident before I could get a blu-ray reader that could read the backup disks, but at least it would be a possibility. Those who have relied exclusively on magnetic storage may be out of luck and they could lose everything. I'll wait for the prices to come down on the discs before I buy them, but I will eventually purchase about 10 of them to backup our critical files, home movies, documents, etc.
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Welcome to the forum!

You could also store your back-up hard drives in a Faraday cage to protect them against an EMP. Places sell "EMP bags" that look like antistatic bags, but I don't know if those actually work.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
You can also get EMP paint. But it all has to be tied to ground.
 
M

mredhorsey

Audiophyte
No proof faraday cage zip lock bags work

Welcome to the forum!

You could also store your back-up hard drives in a Faraday cage to protect them against an EMP. Places sell "EMP bags" that look like antistatic bags, but I don't know if those actually work.
Adam,
Thanks for the welcome and for the Faraday cage zip log bag suggestion. At this point I've seen no real evidence that these bags can actually protect against a real EMP. The main concern I have about them is that the EMP can still get to the item inside through the plastic zip lock seal. It is my understanding that in order for any Faraday cage to work, it must completely seal whatever is inside it. The FAQ sections of where these bags are sold do not address this obvious concern.

The second concern is that virtually every test of these bags that I've found so far use cell phone rings, microwave ovens or stun guns. None of these are EMPs so the tests are completely useless as far as I'm concerned to prove they actually protect against an EMP. I think you're onto something in terms of using a Faraday cage to protect a USB hard drive with, but the jury is still out in my mind as to whether or not these zip lock bags can actually do the job.

There is also the question that even if they do provide some EMP protection, is it enough? I've seen conflicting information about that too. Until I see one of these bags protect a real electronic device that we know will be damaged by EMP, being used in a real EMP machine that can generate the levels of EMP we'd expect in a massive solar flare or nuclear incident, I won't buy them because I don't trust them. I'll research other Faraday cage options that have been proven. Thanks anyway for the suggestion, though.
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Agreed on the bags - it was a side note. A true Faraday cage will work. Well, not against a nuclear incident if it's close enough. ;)
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Agreed on the bags - it was a side note. A true Faraday cage will work. Well, not against a nuclear incident if it's close enough. ;)
Yeah one bad night at taco bell and the cage idea backfires.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Us Docs using nature's DNA will beat the magnetic and optical storage. Look what my colleagues are up to at Harvard!

I think magnetic and optical storage are lousy. My wife had critical data from her hard drive saved to DVD. Well when the hard drive failed the DVD's were full of errors and most of the info lost. We now the DVDs worked when created.

My son who designs solid state devices and has had a lot to do with SD drives, says to expect SD drives to be the least durable of all and says nothing critical should be archived on an SD drive. Go DNA.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I agree with Clint analysis - this as dead as MO media and drives there
Is there large capacity good archival format exists? I don't know really...
Isn't DNA storage is still in very, very early research stage and nothing much could be said about it.

PS: SD isn't type of of storage, but more of interface. SD uses flash memory, but much simpler and cheaper kind than any SSD.
Technically no one prevents to make high quality SD based storage, just no one in their right mind would buy it :)
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
Printed works seem to have lasted for several hundred years, immune to EMP, etc. Just bulky :D
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
The key words are large capacity and second I forgot to mention - digital
How are going to print out a movie, music or human voice? Old school film and Vinyl Record both terrible at preservation

Who knows , maybe they will develop some sort of cheap large capacity solid storage which will be suitable for archiving (and we haven't even touch digital formats issues)
 
C

Cyberstorm

Audiophyte
Long Term Archival

With regards to long term storage, there have been several technologies, though only a few remain.

Kodak produced their 74min 650MB Gold plated discs in the 1995-2000's or so, and were the single best disc for long term storage (as far as I know - no source - might be incorrect) -- up to 200 years in accelerated tests.
Kodak also produced 80min 700MB Silver+Gold plated discs in 1998-2003 or so, and were also very good for long term storage, claimed to last up to 100 years in accelerated tests.

I still have quite a few of both types (burned in 1996, and 1998 up to 2005 when DVD's took over), that still works flawlessly - even though quite a few other brands of cd's and dvd's have failed miserably.

VHS tapes, Casette Tapes, DAT Tapes, Floppies and Harddiscs of various types (IDE, ATA, and SCSI) most likely have failed at least some bits (even though they may seem to read correctly - Bit rot is most likely present in every type).

With Harddiscs in particular, I have seen so many fail, that I tend to buy new ones every 2-3 years, BEFORE they have a chance to fail - this is just about every brand - Seagate, IBM, Maxtor, Connor, Western Digital, Hitachi, ... well name one, and it will most likely fail within 2-5 years if used often enough --- though proper cooling (much more that the producers claim is necessary) -- can prolong the lifespan.

Recently when researching long-term storage, I stumbled upon a "new" format --- Milleniata ... a Disc format designed from the start to last 1000 years - based on Stone inside the disc, instead of dyes. Go watch Milleniata's Promotional video's they give a nice overview. At first they produced 4.7GB DVD-R's and have now begun manufacturing 25GB BD-R's. It requires a very high powered laser to burn the stone-layer in the disc, and the burner itself have to be "M-DISC" certified --- though,

I have read that some recorders can be firmware upgraded to be able to cope with M-DISC's (at probably a lot lower write speed than their normally stated max, as the M-DISC requires very high powered laser (same goes for higher speed - thus if you lower speed, you MIGHT be able to burn M-DISC's - with the right firmware)

Finally - if you really want to preserve "stuff" - implementing a Parity area -- like e.g. Nero's SecurDisc implementation, or simply PAR2 - or another kind of Parity writing software and md5 sums to ensure that the data really IS intact, is some of the way to ensuring proper long term archival of data.

And yes, DNA is quite resilient, with many safeguards against mutations - Mutations still do occur --- but at least in data preservation with parity sets and md5 sums one will be able to detect it at the very least. :)
 
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Ponzio

Ponzio

Audioholic Samurai
This is why I keep 3 2TB 7200 HD's as my backups using SyncBackFree software daily/hourly and pray. Knock on wood none have failed in 4 years and when one of them does ... as it surely will :D... I'll replace it/them. They may not be the most reliable but with the cost of storage at an all time low for standard HD's ... you can pickup a Fantom 2TB USB3 unit anywhere from $99, on sale, to $139 ... it seems to me to be the cost effective solution.
 
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