[mythtv-users] Options for Backing up Myth data

[Brian Wood]

On Wednesday, December 08, 2010 08:56:35 pm Raymond Wagner wrote:
> On 12/8/2010 22:30, Brian Wood wrote:
> > On Wednesday, December 08, 2010 06:07:20 pm Dave Badia wrote:
> >> Suppose I'll chime in too...
> >> Myth DB gets backed up nightly via the contrib script.
> >> All of my servers non-media files get backed up nightly via
> >> backuppc
> >> 
> >> My important media (family photos and videos) live on raid-1 until
> >> they get backed up quarterly to DVD-R,  They then get moved to
> >> "off-site storage" which is my desk drawer at work.  It's pretty
> >> simple and lets me sleep at night knowing I've got things backed
> >> up.
> >> 
> >> I personally don't like hard drives for long term off-site storage
> >> as I feel a hard drive is always one drop away from being wiped
> >> out due to mechanical failure.  Optical media show at least be
> >> reliable for a few years.  Just my 2 cents
> > 
> > Seems few people are using BR, it can't be the burner cost, BR
> > burners are cheaper today than DVD writers were 2 or 4 years ago,
> > and lots of people used DVD for backup then.
> 
> The cheapest burner you can buy is $100.  DVD burners have been stuck
> around $30 - $40 for around five years now.

Four years ago you could get a bare bones OEM DVD burner for $40-$50, 
but "full featured" (ie: Lightscribe, mounting hardware, software and 
retail packaging) units were closer to $90. Not that those "features" 
were of much use to Myth users though.

But I would expect some reduction in BR burner cost in the next year or 
two.

> 
> > Or folks are using some other option
> 
> Flash drives are simply more convenient, and while smaller than
> BD-Rs, still offer plenty of space for most people.  The fact that
> they are read/writable on just about any computer also makes them
> far more useful.

Flash drives are OK for documents and photos, but they are pretty much 
useless for any significant amount of video, especially HD. The amount of 
data you can store on a flash drive is about what is practical to store 
online.

But I'm just trying to find out what people are using, I'll put you down 
as a vote for "flash drives" :-)