[mythtv-users] 2 TB Hard Drive Recommendations

[Simon Hobson]

Jay Ashworth wrote:

>  > To be fair most consumer grade HDs are probably appropriate for home
>>  use, even if you use a couple of them.
>>
>>  Tapes are expensive, and have storage requirements beyond what most
>>  home people will bother to do, and the drives require care and
>>  attention beyond what a lot of home machines will receive.
>
>I'm fine with that... as long as people don't lie to themselves that it
>is a "backup", with all the implications that word carries.

In what way are my hard disks, sat offsite (in my desk drawer at 
work) not a backup for my home computers ? Note, backup, NOT archive. 
Standard SATA drives so I should have no worries about finding 
compatible hardware to read them, unlike the SLR tapes I was using 
where I'd probably have to hit eBay to get a suitable drive and SCSI 
card (or ask a very big favour of someone I know who I *think* still 
has a working setup).

As to speed, on the same computer, the SLR drive is waaay slower than 
the hard drive. The former is the limiting factor in transfer rates, 
the latter is limited by the (not very high spec) system I use for 
backups. It's a factor of 3 difference in performance for data 
transfers, but immesureable difference in access times.
Obviously for people (businesses) able to pay "considerably more" for 
the tape drives and media then it may well be different, but not for 
me. It also depends on the volume.

As an aside, a friend works for a surveying company that does video 
surveys of roads for various clients. They stream all the digital 
video to tape for performance reasons - but at a cost.
-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
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