I mean at that point why not go actually nutz and get into tape drives?
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
8 points (100.0% liked)
datahoarder
10651 readers
1 users here now
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Because I believe for home use optical disc in a cartridge is easier.
*I might be wrong, but I remember LTO tape must be stored at certain RH and condition.
And they last for 30 years, maybe
And VHS tapes. Ade the idea of a tape around a spool feeels like it is not as robust as a disc.
Having said that, iffff consumer version of lto tape drives was out there it would be as cool.
But I still feel discs are more safer.
You see, I could salvage archival optical disc if I got flooded or if they went through extreme temperature.
My understanding is that tape drives are still the basic thing for long term storage, and that they are more robust for long term storage than disc drives. And way, way, way, cheaper. I used to work at a company that like, we had so many bankers boxes of hard drives laying around, we actually got in trouble with fire dept for them blocking the hallway a bit. So that could be an option, that is, hot swappable drives.
My home server is a 42 tb nas. It cost me about 1k to set up and honestly it's been very worth it.
I think NAS is great for techies but optica disc storage is better option for family memories and stuff.
A NAS need maintenance and can get expensive.
LTO tape take a lot of care, I just read about it again.
It needs proper storage and maintenace and even then it last for 30 years.
Optical media last 50+ years and storage conditions is just normal home climate. I think for childhood memories, important documents, wedding videos is a perfect medium.
A NAS need maintenance and can get expensive.
not because of the hardware.
LTO tape take a lot of care, I just read about it again.
It needs proper storage and maintenace
just like optical disks
Optical media last 50+ years and storage conditions is just normal home climate.
that's not what I read. fewer years, sensitive to dust, temperature changes through thermal expansion, sensitive to sunlight, to humidity because of molding. sensitivity to movements, because if you store them in those spinner boxes, they will scratch each other as they spin when you move the box around.
not because of the hardware.
The main cost is the hardware you could have open source NAS OS's
The thing you read about optical discs is not about HTL inorganic blurays
You read about CD's which uses an organize layer for the data.
Inorganic HTL blurays lasts 50+ years, and can be stored in room temperature and at high humidity.
About the box, those sleeves are not.designed for archival disc archival storage boxes protect blurays from scratches
And sony Archival Discs are inside a cartridge protected from scratches
This sounds cool but apparently it's discontinued?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_Disc_Archive
https://obsoletemedia.org/optical-disc-archive/
Quick web search didn't find the drive cost but you can get LTO-6 or LTO-7 drives relatively affordably if you're into such storage. Meanwhile, more recent LTO generations seem to have shot up in price, maybe following DRAM and hard discs, ugh.
LTO is too complicated for someone like me.
Obtaining used drive is the only choice and it is still expensive... I think.
And magentic tape can store more.dafa but I think a cartridge with several optical disk is way more reliable because the data don't habe to move around a spool or something.
Why don't you buy a BD-ROM drive and burn around 50GB data to those? Then they have those drive cases that'll hold around 100 discs on a soft sleeve, easy to store, lightweight, but takes manual moving. But of you're prose is archival/backup, that's the way to go.
I've got stacks of DVD-ROM discs from almost 20 years ago that hold 4.7GB data each iirc and have flip phone pictures and video on just to not waste space on a backup hard drives that's not likely to fail. I do have a BD-ROM drive now but never cared to pull data from disc to HDD, then reburn multiple onto 1 or 2 BD discs. Would make sense to do it as it'll reset the preservation clock, be ~$100 drive, and last about 30 years.
You're looking for inexpensive, long term, low technical skill. And I give you a solution that doesn't require giving Sony money outside of royalties for blu ray tech.