Very nice video. A good reminder to back up your stuff and some ways how to do it. I gotta tell ya though gettin' a $200 shredder beats possibly ruining your microwave and stinking up your kitchen (or someone else's ). But once again: Very nice video. Concise and informative.
dvd rw are also magneto optical. advantage of the "floptical" disks is that it is housed in a casing which protects it. disadvantage is that the drives are expensive and not very common compared to a dvd drive. would be nice to see someone do comparison dvd+r vs dvd+RW. quality cd-r seems likely to last longer than blu ray or dvd.
that was REALLY cool thanks for the video i was always interested in tapes, i got over magnetic lazer media after my minidisc craze, i think i'll just go for the blu ray even given the lifespan of disc media; i mean it's so much cheaper than flash drives and competitive sizes.
Al~ I like this video a lot. Very informative info... I put it on my profile as a featured video. I don't think people realize how these things fail. They think they last forever. However, I have some CDs that I burned like ten years ago... still working just great. I understand that you have CDs that we burned earlier than that... but that is amazing how after ten years of inactivity they still work. One of these days I'll have to re-burn the CD. Anyway, thanks for the video. -Josh.
I think those pressed cds are safe, but the burned ones are not. The only reason for that is because the laser alters the chemicals that registers the data on the disk, and depending on the quality of the disk, it can last a long time, or a very short time.
Cool blog! But tapes also lasts at least only for a few years. Meanwhile the quality of optical media is improved a lot. If you use for example CDs or DVDs with gold refectic-layer (archival media) it will last longer than any tape or HD, but you are right, nothing lasts forever and if you want to be save you have to do a copy from time to time ;)
i have a old raid array (i mean old total storage is 27 gig with 10 drives) and its stil working i let it write the data from 1 drives to another every month it a nice piece buth yeah if i got the mony i get one with like 3 tb
yeah. if your like me and you don't have anything really important on your computer you don't have to worry, and besides im always reinstalling vista. :p
I generally put my stuff on say a 1 TB hard drive, then in 3 years, I'll get another hard drive, and transfer the files, then get another one a few years later and do the same, so hopefully, I'll have these for a few years to come!
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA at you signing New Kids on the block!
WHATEVA!
SEE..... Im sorta behind in times... I have a new dell pc and it came with xp home lol and..... so what I did and dell got pissed off..... lol I partitioned this 230 gig hardrive
But... What I use it for is for both my old pc and my new pc and I have my Outlook 2003 PST and Programs backed up so all I gotta do is go to the old pc if its a program I like and open that F: and install it on the old pc for my parents ^_^
I know you said HDD fail.. lol the old pc was bought in 2002....its 5 years old and the Samsung 40 gig hdd is still rockin and rolling in it... No failures yet *crosses fingers* rofl....
I sorta tried to nuke a cd once left it on to long LOL and it sorta stunk the house up to high hevens lol and you will never get that smell out of your Microwave lol if you do it to long
ps.. water before you nuked the cd? what does that do
I sorta tried to nuke a cd once left it on to long LOL and it sorta stunk the house up to high hevens lol and you will never get that smell out of your Microwave lol if you do it to long
Yeah, I think Blu-Ray disk will beat out HD in the next couple years. On the audio clip you played that said "Get the fuck out of the country". Was that The Dice Man too? lol You know whats funny when he was talking about California, having drug addicts and pimps and all that. That is basically New York City to, but without the earthquakes. haha
Good to see someone actually using magneto-optical technology. I use it at work, archiving data from a document management system. We use 9.2GB media in an HP jukebox. We have a legacy system that uses 2.6GB media (in an older HP jukebox), which contain data that date all the way back to 1994. A testament to MO's shelf life. You are correct, however, when you say it is SLOW. Also wanted to say thanks for your videos - they are great!
I had many hard drives and never had one fail. My last drive i used for 6 years before updating it However, my brothers always seem to have hard drive failure, so i backup on both CD and I have a USB flash i save on. My oldest CD-Rs are 8 years old. I haven't had any problems but i guess I'll find out in a few years. My dad has reel-to-reel audio tapes from the 1960s that still work perfect, maybe that's the way to go
Maybe you're onto something here. Maybe the CD and DVD manufacturers have found a way to "DIVX" discs -- to intentionally decompose after a few years and become unusable...
"Kids, don't try this at home. Seriously... do it at your friend's house." LOL... that reminds me of a time when some friends & I got stone drunk and blew up eggs in the microwave. :)
Very informative stuff, Al. Wow... about the time you were plunking down $1500 for a CD burner, I sank a measly $400 into a 4gb external SCSI hard drive. Storage has really, REALLY gotten cheap lately, hasn't it? Be that as it may, I'm an advocate for backing up twice now.
cds, dvds and blu-ray as well as hd-dvd are not good for data storage, at least when the data is important.
i recommend a high-performance harddrive-raid for safe data storage, thats safe even to disk failures, and its so damn fast that you will want to use it for all your data. the only way of data loss is 2 HDDs breaking down at the same time, that will never happen.
I wouldn't trust Blu-ray disks as my backup system because of the way they were designed. They were designed with storage capacity as the number one priority and therefor are verry easily damaged. HD-DVD's were designed to do the job, to be cheap and to be reliable (not defragment) and therefor IMO do the job a lot better.
The actual Stamped (a.k.a silver back) CD's which are not burned, they are actally pressed or stamped like a record, as long as they don't scratch or rot, your good to go for several thousand years. So, everyone demand any given number of companies to start making cd stampers.
If you you still have the '96 Pinnacle CD-R Burner try reading the discs that won't mount on your new system on the old burner.
Back in the late 90's, I archived a series of CDs using my old Power 100 Mac system and a LaCie CD-R burner. I tried to read the disc on my two new systems- G5 & Mac Mini to no avail. Before chucking the CDs in the trash, I pulled my old LaCie burner out of the closet, popped in the problem CDs and they mounted without a problem. Try it. CDRs are weird. :)
Hi Noko - because store bought discs are made with a different process (I think they are pressed from a master), however, THEY probably have an effective lifespan as well -- I did have three audio CD's simply 'not work' when I was feeding them into my MacMini.
this is pretty simple. often times people think they are all duplicates from a master disc,like most of us may make on our computers to play in our car or whatever.
They are infact what is called a replicate, you can google for a company called tripledisc and they do this process and explain it on their website.
I'm currently converting from vinyl to MP3 and had put all my faith into a couple of 500GB external hard drives. I was hoping they'd be secure for a while but 3-5 years! I'm not sitting through hours of X2-X4 recording again! Good info
Consider 'doubling up' on the hard drives, putting them in pairs as mirrored raid arrays. Drives are relatively cheap these days -- and the probability of TWO within a mirrored raid set failing at the SAME TIME is unlikely. That should cover you. Let me know how you do with the conversions!
Haha "cd bruning a religious experience", I guess since you were burning $10 CD-Rs, I bet you had to be extra careful to burn things correctly and the half hour you said it took. What was the standard size of a CD-R back in the scary 90's? TTYL Think Different.
I have some CDRs from 1995 that I burned.. and they have turned brown! pretty messed up. Most of my CDRs dont work. You can buy some cds that claim to last 100 years though!
Really informal video. Really. Arrays, Iv had for years, NEVER had a problem with it. CD's, your right, Will not last forever.. Thanks for the public service announcement. Never a dull moment with Alfred! Hope to see more really soon.
GREAT video man! thx i need to get to work on mine to man! i got crap all over my Desktop and i did that CD thing how to get rid of them that was AWESOME just after the big blue flame went away in the microwave every thing was all good again :P
BTW, Blu-Ray's supposed to get to at least 4 layers (I think). Maybe it is only up to 2 layers for the consumers now but 200GB ARE coming. As for increasing HDD space, still waiting on our Exbibyte Drives to arrive so that we can put the featured ZFS from the OSX 10.5 to good use.
Also, GREAT looped stuff! I well remember the excitement that burning at 2X was & how much praying went out to the "computer gods" so that the CD that came out of the burner was NOT a really REALY expensive coaster.
So what do we do when we REALLY wanna save stuff? Burn it on a CD, a DVD, a Blu-Ray, an HD-DVD, a Zip Drive, Magnetic Optical whateva, a hard drive,other flash drive, an online SECURE (haha!) account AND tape...
hey i was going to say that the labels on the CDs were the problems but then you mentioned it.. but you might be right and also electronics do fail after a while as you said...
Every time you play a CD the lazer burns a layer off or so I was told in college - back in 2000. A normal music CD that you buy in a shop say 'Kylie's Greatest Hit' :) has a up to a million plays then it start to fail. CD-R have a greatly shorter life Alf - as you just found out!
hey can you tell me what the "300 gig" tape recorder is called and how exactly that works, cuz beats the hell out of any dvd blu ray or whatever there is on the market and probably is alot cheaper right..?
ow by the way, I LOVE THAT BIOSHOCK POSTER.. NICEEE!!!
First off, magnetic media only has a shelf life of 5 years. Secondly, hard drives can indeed die in under a year if not used (speaking from experience =D). #3, Will It Nuke was just a silly video response to Blendtec that I recently axed. =) Either way, hilarious video. =D
lovetoeatallthefood mentioned vinyl records. I have several(a lot) of vinyl records. like the Edison phonograph(cylinder) records, I have one; Edison diamond disc records, I have six; "78 rpm" gramophone records, I have 71; 45 rpm records, I have about 95; and 33 1/3 rpm records, I have three box sets and about 10-20 maybe 30 single LP's. I also have a package of four blank philco records.
I still have several boxes of my old Apple][ disks (5 1/4 inch floppies) from 1982. So far they are still readable. How did all the Apple disks you pulled out of storage hold up?
awesome video...i CANNOT wait for the next video about hang gliding over volcanoes...i was going to do that this summer so it will be good to see some tips about how to do that properly!!!...yes i am kidding :P lol
I thought I was the only other person burning cd's way back when! I recently went through my old data and had the same problem with bad media. I had bought fuji disc's that were a bunch of crap. The print surface began to peel. Thankfully most of the stuff was junk to begin with.
Al, i have a question, when you put the cd in your G4 and it mounted the icon for it moved some folders out the way to be under the hard disk id like mine todo that how did you make yours do that
lmao, your videos are always the best. It's the best thing since back when Leo Laporte was always on "The Screensavers" on g4, formerly known as tech tv
Long time man...actually my dad does CD storage a different way...albeit rather crude...he bought a factory grade plastic wrapping device...originally used for wrapping meat...he then wrapped the CD cases with the said wrapping device and put them into a freezer set to 15 degrees...8 years later...the CDs were then unwrapped for my sister's wedding slideshow...lo and behold..they worked perfectly...
I had a similar problem with PC cd's as years ago they were gold covered cd's and they wouldnt run on the newer readers. Luckily I had an old P75 and this loaded them fine as it was an old Cd burner. So I networked this to the new machine and just used the old cd burner to back them up on my new machines hardrive.
How long would data sit on a flash USB disk? Their not powered when sitting alone, so could it wipe itself? I've seen those tapes... their freaking powerful. I desperately want a 1TB mybook, they look perfect for backup.
There was a prototype 100gig blue ray disk I saw before it was released.
BTW to make a RAID away you need at least 2 REAL HD's, a USB HD won't work :P
Holy crap -- 100 gig Blu-Ray? Perhaps they went double layer, double sided! Yes, those MyBook drives make for great backup -- and the price has come down a lot! Let us know if you get one!
Yer... They were double sided.. I think their probably going to make most disks double sided as it seems that programs are only getting bigger and bigger... Imagine the kind of program you could fit onto a 100gig disk... It would be amazing.
The mydisk will be my next computer hardware purchase. My 60GB HD is starting to fail, it's already died twice.. it even lost complete power a while back.
since wiping it with the mac FS it's seemed to work rather well lol.
I wonder how CD/DVD RWs hold up. I mean they are in a way magnito-optical and don't have a dye layer that could fail. My understanding the blue dye CD are the worst.
Great question - the reason why was due to that song being so mega pop, I wanted to see if a radical vocal change, narly synth patch, and reduced temp would make it better -- I think it did! LOL! Thanks for checking in!
Hmm. Not sure. Film a 10 second test clip and email it to me to dibs5 at aol and I will analyze the audio track. You might need a converter program to convert PRIOR to going into iMovie. What is the exact make/model number of the camera?
greate video i know what you mean CD-R & DVD-R dont last for eva thats why i pay more even if u you are getting less if u are backing up importent data its best to buy better disks the cheaper you buy the cheaper you get the shorter they will last
Ben! Thank for watching. I'd like to see Verbatim come out wtih a holographic storage device that stores a few thousand terabytes on a crystal -- or something like that. And, if you put that much information in a device, could it become 'self-aware?' LOL! Thanks for watching, Ben. I hope you are doing well.
Wow, is there no end to the stuff you own! I think if I ever need mass storage backed up I should send it your way, lol. Love the nuking of the CD-ROM, gives me an idea if one ever craps out on me.
Hi Pool - yes, my condo looks a bit like a music store and a computer store. I really enjoy electronics, but as you can see from my films, I have a mix of other activities as well. Yes, who would think that, technically, our microwave ovens are part of our data backup/security procedures! LOL! Thanks for commenting.
thanks for the tips on data storage. I'm glad i watched this. I have cd's that I've burned from about 1997. I should check out and make sure they still work. LOL!!!!!
HI Grand - please share your findings with everyone in this thread. I am sure they will appreciate it. Make sure you reference the brand of the CD's as well!
Somewhere, in one of the storage units, I have some paper tape in a 'time capsule cylinder' - - and even some punch cards from the IBM mainframe. I hope to find them one day -- now THAT was a riot! Thanks for reminding me of the good old days!
Hi John - oh yea, lots of "FF" class things all around us! I'm scoping out some new "FF" class synthesizers to add to my collection -- if I get them, you'll see a video on that! In the interim, google the product Korg OASYS and check out the 88 key version of that synth. THAT is "FF" class, no doubt!
The only CDs I generally burn are ISO images. I back up my data using the 'more than one location at a time' rule. I have my music and pictures on both my laptop and my external hard drive (2 places). My critical family pictures are on my laptop, my external drive, my sister's computer and the memory stick in the camera (4 places)! I don't trust burned CDs all that much.
Trev! Thanks for checking in. Yes, Vegas was good -- drop me a note and let me know how your cruise went (or is that trip coming up later in the year?). TTYL.
Talking about that harddrives and CD's and stuff fail I'd thought you would bring up solid state media like those USB sticks or CF/SD cards etc. 3gig magneto whatever or a 4 gig thumb drive... option 2? Thought that solid state crap wasn't suppose to fail.
Good point on the thumb drives. At the time, a 1 gig thumb drive was about 100 dollars, and the 2.3 DynaMo blanks were about 20 dollars for 2 gigs, so it was much more price efficient. Now, the thumb drives are much cheaper, however it is easier to shelve a bunch of the DynaMo discs. Good point, though. It prompted me to order a few 4 gig thumb drives right now!
Thank you, PS. I know it was a 'long one' and not necessarily a 'killer comedy' but damn, I really want my subscribers and viewers to check their data. Thanks for the comment.
Great video, Alfred! I have the urge to go check all the discs I've kept from years ago. I was probably 13 or so when I first burned something though so its almost worth checking them just to see what I was archiving!! :o
Some really great facts and suggestions here and entertaining as always! Keep 'em coming!
Shady - please report back (make a video if you can) on the status of your older burns. And, if it's not too embarassing, make sure you tell us what music you were archiving back then. LOL! Thanks for watching.
The dye layer where the data is stored dried out and cracked. The blanks for DVD+R DL are still overpriced, but I feel thats to discurage piracy (IE the blanks are more than the original material)
MagnetoOpticals are definately really save Storage Devices ! I ´ve been using them as HardDrives for my 3 Emulator Samplers for almost 9 years now and they never made any trouble.
Mast - damn FUNNY you say that, because I was looking at my binder of SAMPLE CD's saying 'holy cow, these are all gonna fade away one day as well. Good forward thinking on your part to embrace the magneto optical for your Emu samplers. My Emu 4XT hard drive just went -- I have to replace it. Hmn, might make a good video! :) Thanks for watching.
I shall have to watch this again and makes notes as you made a few errors. The one that stuck out most; The NT kernel does allow RAID containers but NT/XP natively stripes the volumes so if one dies, that it - Eek! {:o|
Interesting on the native striping -- which delivers greater speed. From what I recall, under Windows XP, using the disk utility program, you can ask for it to mirror a drive. Please report back your findings! Thanks!
Hi Al, I have a pair of 25Gb HDD doing nothing so I may well try it just to see what happens. God knows whats on these drives, should be an adventure!
Yes, SCSI was the 'king of speed' at the time -- but, oddly enought, in the high end servers and what not, it still seems to be the drive type of choice for RAID arrays. Our DELL servers at work are all based on SCSI RAID 5 arrays, which give BOTH mirroring AND speed. Good stuff. Thanks for watching.
I do a lot of photo archiving, the biggest CD-R killer is using permanent markers on them, the ink damages the burned layer of the disc over time. You can get a gold plated disc... about 1.75$ piece, never failed me, worth for critical data.
Mama-say-mama-say-mama-so-sa, BOOM! Very meticulous Al!
Branhower1 3 months ago
@gizmo86w42 What is Blu-Ray "Anno" ?
adiblasi 1 year ago
Very nice video. A good reminder to back up your stuff and some ways how to do it. I gotta tell ya though gettin' a $200 shredder beats possibly ruining your microwave and stinking up your kitchen (or someone else's ). But once again: Very nice video. Concise and informative.
bigkid666999 1 year ago
dvd rw are also magneto optical. advantage of the "floptical" disks is that it is housed in a casing which protects it. disadvantage is that the drives are expensive and not very common compared to a dvd drive. would be nice to see someone do comparison dvd+r vs dvd+RW. quality cd-r seems likely to last longer than blu ray or dvd.
firehandszarb 1 year ago
Thanks Alfred, very informative and helpful on archiving. Also, are magnetic tape drives expensive?
Wired2X 1 year ago
I think these magneto tapes aren't very safe. If you let these Tapes near a magnetic field all the data will be erased or destroyed. Isn't it?
FixedHDD 2 years ago
that was REALLY cool thanks for the video i was always interested in tapes, i got over magnetic lazer media after my minidisc craze, i think i'll just go for the blu ray even given the lifespan of disc media; i mean it's so much cheaper than flash drives and competitive sizes.
imma subscribe! i NEVER subscribe!
-hero
fordieform 2 years ago
on other videos of yours the model on the apc battery backup for the dell was sux 9000 and the mx revolution... lol
Burnvictim89 2 years ago
Wow... I remember when I bought a 256 MB flash drive and it was huge! It is sad to see new technology becoming cheaper and cheaper... Nice video!
TylersComputerShow 3 years ago
110 GB music library .. alfred holy crap :P
Cartman356 3 years ago
good for a 160 ipod
Thegamer5150 2 years ago
Al~ I like this video a lot. Very informative info... I put it on my profile as a featured video. I don't think people realize how these things fail. They think they last forever. However, I have some CDs that I burned like ten years ago... still working just great. I understand that you have CDs that we burned earlier than that... but that is amazing how after ten years of inactivity they still work. One of these days I'll have to re-burn the CD. Anyway, thanks for the video. -Josh.
JoshuaClark1 3 years ago
I like this video Alfred. Very very informative.
billydelp4 3 years ago
What about flash memory? Flash memory isn't like a HD, its a memory chip inside a plastic case, not a mechanical disk. I'll have to do more research.
marshalauth 3 years ago
I think those pressed cds are safe, but the burned ones are not. The only reason for that is because the laser alters the chemicals that registers the data on the disk, and depending on the quality of the disk, it can last a long time, or a very short time.
fdsman 3 years ago
Cool blog! But tapes also lasts at least only for a few years. Meanwhile the quality of optical media is improved a lot. If you use for example CDs or DVDs with gold refectic-layer (archival media) it will last longer than any tape or HD, but you are right, nothing lasts forever and if you want to be save you have to do a copy from time to time ;)
incomstorage 3 years ago
Hehe, now I saw it till the end. You told everything... Perfect! Good job!
incomstorage 3 years ago
nice video :D
demyrik 3 years ago
One Thing You Can Do Is Set-Up A Old PC/Mac And Use That As A Back-Up Machine In A Remote Location
HBeagley 3 years ago
btw i use raid 0 (risky) its just so fast!
kramer3214 4 years ago
Yes, will admit, I have a few Raid 0 arrays on the MacPro. Very fast. Very scary. They call it 'Scary Raid' LOL!
adiblasi 3 years ago
flash memory. last for like 5,000,000 hours running
kramer3214 4 years ago
do they even sell magnetos anymore?
djypsydjazz 4 years ago
i have a old raid array (i mean old total storage is 27 gig with 10 drives) and its stil working i let it write the data from 1 drives to another every month it a nice piece buth yeah if i got the mony i get one with like 3 tb
djneo92nl 4 years ago
killing that cd is funny as hell i tryed it, it was very funny! XD
ill get a video up soon! :P
ia4ron 4 years ago 2
RAID = redundant array of inexpensive disks.
djypsydjazz 4 years ago
OR... redundant array of independent disks :D
kramer3214 4 years ago 2
Or ... Retarded Anal Innocuous Dilemma -- hey, I like that one!
adiblasi 3 years ago 7
yeah. if your like me and you don't have anything really important on your computer you don't have to worry, and besides im always reinstalling vista. :p
kramer3214 3 years ago
I love your videos! I didn't actually believe you would do that to the CD... Poor thing. :P
SquaresAreCircular 4 years ago 2
love this video!
pstce38 4 years ago
I can see some files on the disc dated 1991, that's pretty damn funny. Older than me!
jalland 4 years ago
I generally put my stuff on say a 1 TB hard drive, then in 3 years, I'll get another hard drive, and transfer the files, then get another one a few years later and do the same, so hopefully, I'll have these for a few years to come!
creativeatheart 4 years ago 2
It's a kind of expensive way to do it. But hey, if you have the money that's probably the best way to do it.
djypsydjazz 4 years ago
It hasn't ever failed me, and I can sell the older drives to partly pay for the new ones! Works, and I know that for now, Im safe!
creativeatheart 4 years ago
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA at you signing New Kids on the block!
WHATEVA!
SEE..... Im sorta behind in times... I have a new dell pc and it came with xp home lol and..... so what I did and dell got pissed off..... lol I partitioned this 230 gig hardrive
so C: is windows
d: is my Documents
e: Is Music
F: is a shared drive....
( see next post )
cmarlow330 4 years ago
(( part 2 of my comment ))
But... What I use it for is for both my old pc and my new pc and I have my Outlook 2003 PST and Programs backed up so all I gotta do is go to the old pc if its a program I like and open that F: and install it on the old pc for my parents ^_^
I know you said HDD fail.. lol the old pc was bought in 2002....its 5 years old and the Samsung 40 gig hdd is still rockin and rolling in it... No failures yet *crosses fingers* rofl....
(( See next one ))
cmarlow330 4 years ago
(( part 3 of my comment ))
I sorta tried to nuke a cd once left it on to long LOL and it sorta stunk the house up to high hevens lol and you will never get that smell out of your Microwave lol if you do it to long
ps.. water before you nuked the cd? what does that do
I sorta tried to nuke a cd once left it on to long LOL and it sorta stunk the house up to high hevens lol and you will never get that smell out of your Microwave lol if you do it to long
~ Christopher ~
cmarlow330 4 years ago
Roxio used to be Adaptec, I remember those ancient burning days, very frustrating
flyingjackal456 4 years ago
"Jay. Bring back Will It Nuke and video response it to this video." So I do, and ..... nothing. :-P Whatevuh. =D
MultimediaJay 4 years ago
i never had a problem with my hard drive its in a 6 year old vaio pc lol now i gotta a mac and gave that shyt to my sis
FTrain4750 4 years ago
Very informative vido, you know what you're talking about dude!
prestoleum 4 years ago
a time a go my brother came home with a 1 gig hd
at that time i had a old windows laptop memories with 200 mb hd and a old macintosh nou i have a sd card of 4 gig with the size of my tumb
djneo92nl 4 years ago
Nice video Enjoyed it
WHEN DESTROYING DVD'S I LIKE TO SPLIT THE DVD IN TWO THEN SCRAPE THE OPTICAL PLATER OFF WITH A KNIFE.
jace8008 4 years ago
is that how u spend your life u sads fuck faced tard twat! nice vid btw
wilkinsonproductions 4 years ago
Nice video Enjoyed it
WHEN DESTROYING DVD'S I LIKE TO SPLIT THE DVD IN TWO THEN SCRAPE THE OPTICAL PLATER OFF WITH A KNIFE.
jace8008 4 years ago
Nice video Enjoyed it
WHEN DESTROYING DVD'S I LIKE TO SPLIT THE DVD IN TWO THEN SCRAPE THE OPTICAL PLATER OFF WITH A KNIFE.
jace8008 4 years ago
awsome vids as always bud! whatever
MitoDL 4 years ago
Yeah, I think Blu-Ray disk will beat out HD in the next couple years. On the audio clip you played that said "Get the fuck out of the country". Was that The Dice Man too? lol You know whats funny when he was talking about California, having drug addicts and pimps and all that. That is basically New York City to, but without the earthquakes. haha
calsonicSTi 4 years ago
Good to see someone actually using magneto-optical technology. I use it at work, archiving data from a document management system. We use 9.2GB media in an HP jukebox. We have a legacy system that uses 2.6GB media (in an older HP jukebox), which contain data that date all the way back to 1994. A testament to MO's shelf life. You are correct, however, when you say it is SLOW. Also wanted to say thanks for your videos - they are great!
Thanks,
Brendan
edificemusic 4 years ago
I had many hard drives and never had one fail. My last drive i used for 6 years before updating it However, my brothers always seem to have hard drive failure, so i backup on both CD and I have a USB flash i save on. My oldest CD-Rs are 8 years old. I haven't had any problems but i guess I'll find out in a few years. My dad has reel-to-reel audio tapes from the 1960s that still work perfect, maybe that's the way to go
kwg2005 4 years ago
Hey I enjoy watching your videos. They are random and i like that. lol im a computer nerd myself
kramer3214 4 years ago
Thanks!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Maybe you're onto something here. Maybe the CD and DVD manufacturers have found a way to "DIVX" discs -- to intentionally decompose after a few years and become unusable...
jaworskij 4 years ago
LOL! Now THAT is a good idea for the manufacturers! Could you imagine if it was true? LOL!
adiblasi 4 years ago
"Kids, don't try this at home. Seriously... do it at your friend's house." LOL... that reminds me of a time when some friends & I got stone drunk and blew up eggs in the microwave. :)
Very informative stuff, Al. Wow... about the time you were plunking down $1500 for a CD burner, I sank a measly $400 into a 4gb external SCSI hard drive. Storage has really, REALLY gotten cheap lately, hasn't it? Be that as it may, I'm an advocate for backing up twice now.
XMattingly 4 years ago
Yes, backup up TWICE on the important stuff -- excellent idea!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Really interesting and fun! Does your backup hardware also work with a PC?
Travelfreak78 4 years ago
Hi - yes, that Tape Backup will work on Windows PC's as well!
adiblasi 4 years ago
cds, dvds and blu-ray as well as hd-dvd are not good for data storage, at least when the data is important.
i recommend a high-performance harddrive-raid for safe data storage, thats safe even to disk failures, and its so damn fast that you will want to use it for all your data. the only way of data loss is 2 HDDs breaking down at the same time, that will never happen.
kurtilein3 4 years ago
Good points - thank you!
adiblasi 4 years ago
I wouldn't trust Blu-ray disks as my backup system because of the way they were designed. They were designed with storage capacity as the number one priority and therefor are verry easily damaged. HD-DVD's were designed to do the job, to be cheap and to be reliable (not defragment) and therefor IMO do the job a lot better.
LAG09 4 years ago
Holy crap. I thought I was anal about archiving... Alfred, you have me beat!
miket4383 4 years ago
The actual Stamped (a.k.a silver back) CD's which are not burned, they are actally pressed or stamped like a record, as long as they don't scratch or rot, your good to go for several thousand years. So, everyone demand any given number of companies to start making cd stampers.
fdsman 4 years ago
Adiblasi-
If you you still have the '96 Pinnacle CD-R Burner try reading the discs that won't mount on your new system on the old burner.
Back in the late 90's, I archived a series of CDs using my old Power 100 Mac system and a LaCie CD-R burner. I tried to read the disc on my two new systems- G5 & Mac Mini to no avail. Before chucking the CDs in the trash, I pulled my old LaCie burner out of the closet, popped in the problem CDs and they mounted without a problem. Try it. CDRs are weird. :)
cloudmover 4 years ago
that cd was burned on my 11th birthday lol
pixe18uk 4 years ago
Informative!
Also, I was wondering if someone can explain to me why store bought pre-recorded discs don't have this problem.
Nokorola 4 years ago
Hi Noko - because store bought discs are made with a different process (I think they are pressed from a master), however, THEY probably have an effective lifespan as well -- I did have three audio CD's simply 'not work' when I was feeding them into my MacMini.
adiblasi 4 years ago
this is pretty simple. often times people think they are all duplicates from a master disc,like most of us may make on our computers to play in our car or whatever.
They are infact what is called a replicate, you can google for a company called tripledisc and they do this process and explain it on their website.
cellularnarcotic 4 years ago
I'm currently converting from vinyl to MP3 and had put all my faith into a couple of 500GB external hard drives. I was hoping they'd be secure for a while but 3-5 years! I'm not sitting through hours of X2-X4 recording again! Good info
anensom 4 years ago
Consider 'doubling up' on the hard drives, putting them in pairs as mirrored raid arrays. Drives are relatively cheap these days -- and the probability of TWO within a mirrored raid set failing at the SAME TIME is unlikely. That should cover you. Let me know how you do with the conversions!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Sweet video, always good to know :D All my cd's are for crap that i burned back then too lol.
bestrada22 4 years ago
Yes - I've gone through a stack of CD's -- just 'for crap' as you say. They just won't load. Oh well.
adiblasi 4 years ago
Thanks Al! I've actually been thinking about finding a good way to back things up the past few weeks.
userxx 4 years ago
Haha "cd bruning a religious experience", I guess since you were burning $10 CD-Rs, I bet you had to be extra careful to burn things correctly and the half hour you said it took. What was the standard size of a CD-R back in the scary 90's? TTYL Think Different.
cssniper06 4 years ago
You know alfred, the gas given of when you nuke a CD-R/DVD is cyanide... so thats something to look out for..
petro1986 4 years ago
I have some CDRs from 1995 that I burned.. and they have turned brown! pretty messed up. Most of my CDRs dont work. You can buy some cds that claim to last 100 years though!
GiR2007 4 years ago
ha ha that goth rendition of "righ stuff" reminds me of the mortal kombat soundtrack!
aaronp01 4 years ago
Really informal video. Really. Arrays, Iv had for years, NEVER had a problem with it. CD's, your right, Will not last forever.. Thanks for the public service announcement. Never a dull moment with Alfred! Hope to see more really soon.
AtariWill123 4 years ago
pinnacle i use that pinnacle studios
jstone1117 4 years ago
GREAT video man! thx i need to get to work on mine to man! i got crap all over my Desktop and i did that CD thing how to get rid of them that was AWESOME just after the big blue flame went away in the microwave every thing was all good again :P
aaron556 4 years ago
Lol, don't make me come over with a magnet!
fdsman 4 years ago
I personally love hard hitting blogs. ;)
Hi, Al
freepatriot 4 years ago
G FIZZLE G FIZZLE!
FendersRule 4 years ago
BTW, Blu-Ray's supposed to get to at least 4 layers (I think). Maybe it is only up to 2 layers for the consumers now but 200GB ARE coming. As for increasing HDD space, still waiting on our Exbibyte Drives to arrive so that we can put the featured ZFS from the OSX 10.5 to good use.
Also, GREAT looped stuff! I well remember the excitement that burning at 2X was & how much praying went out to the "computer gods" so that the CD that came out of the burner was NOT a really REALY expensive coaster.
nickdotvr 4 years ago
5 stars - what a shocker :-P
So what do we do when we REALLY wanna save stuff? Burn it on a CD, a DVD, a Blu-Ray, an HD-DVD, a Zip Drive, Magnetic Optical whateva, a hard drive,other flash drive, an online SECURE (haha!) account AND tape...
nickdotvr 4 years ago
hey i was going to say that the labels on the CDs were the problems but then you mentioned it.. but you might be right and also electronics do fail after a while as you said...
halo239 4 years ago
Every time you play a CD the lazer burns a layer off or so I was told in college - back in 2000. A normal music CD that you buy in a shop say 'Kylie's Greatest Hit' :) has a up to a million plays then it start to fail. CD-R have a greatly shorter life Alf - as you just found out!
CrazyTobster 4 years ago
nice scale in the background
POPi365 4 years ago
hahahaha :D very very entertaining...
hey can you tell me what the "300 gig" tape recorder is called and how exactly that works, cuz beats the hell out of any dvd blu ray or whatever there is on the market and probably is alot cheaper right..?
ow by the way, I LOVE THAT BIOSHOCK POSTER.. NICEEE!!!
anyway, keep em coming, greeetzz
your buddy, Lynk!
lynkonline 4 years ago
so can you explain your current backup procedure and how will it change with OS X leopard and Time machine?
sdubois92 4 years ago
First off, magnetic media only has a shelf life of 5 years. Secondly, hard drives can indeed die in under a year if not used (speaking from experience =D). #3, Will It Nuke was just a silly video response to Blendtec that I recently axed. =) Either way, hilarious video. =D
MultimediaJay 4 years ago
cool
snyderman2007 4 years ago
"Burning was like a religeous experience."
Can I have that on a T-shirt?
PuppyZwolle 4 years ago
Oh..this one is even better:
"At least the music I have ripped is safe."
Mark my words, a true classic. :-)
PuppyZwolle 4 years ago
Also, I borrowed(can't afford my own) my fathers video camera so I'll be showing a lot of my stuff in video format.
jescis0 4 years ago
Hey, Al
lovetoeatallthefood mentioned vinyl records. I have several(a lot) of vinyl records. like the Edison phonograph(cylinder) records, I have one; Edison diamond disc records, I have six; "78 rpm" gramophone records, I have 71; 45 rpm records, I have about 95; and 33 1/3 rpm records, I have three box sets and about 10-20 maybe 30 single LP's. I also have a package of four blank philco records.
jescis0 4 years ago
I still have several boxes of my old Apple][ disks (5 1/4 inch floppies) from 1982. So far they are still readable. How did all the Apple disks you pulled out of storage hold up?
Mainyard48 4 years ago
theirs always flash memory drives
tntproductionsinc 4 years ago
another great video Al!
tylerlavite 4 years ago
awesome video...i CANNOT wait for the next video about hang gliding over volcanoes...i was going to do that this summer so it will be good to see some tips about how to do that properly!!!...yes i am kidding :P lol
jchiaro 4 years ago
I leart allot from that, and you never fail to make me laugh. Keep posting your vids there ace.
stanni1992 4 years ago
Hi Al, great videos very entertaining as well as informative. I can see your a mac fan.
doolki 4 years ago
I thought I was the only other person burning cd's way back when! I recently went through my old data and had the same problem with bad media. I had bought fuji disc's that were a bunch of crap. The print surface began to peel. Thankfully most of the stuff was junk to begin with.
Pookieftw 4 years ago
Al, i have a question, when you put the cd in your G4 and it mounted the icon for it moved some folders out the way to be under the hard disk id like mine todo that how did you make yours do that
jackpierce10 4 years ago
Another great video Al, keep up the good work.
thedekester18 4 years ago
lmao, your videos are always the best. It's the best thing since back when Leo Laporte was always on "The Screensavers" on g4, formerly known as tech tv
bjhorton2005 4 years ago
Hey Al!!
Long time man...actually my dad does CD storage a different way...albeit rather crude...he bought a factory grade plastic wrapping device...originally used for wrapping meat...he then wrapped the CD cases with the said wrapping device and put them into a freezer set to 15 degrees...8 years later...the CDs were then unwrapped for my sister's wedding slideshow...lo and behold..they worked perfectly...
i have no idea how...but it worked..
BTW...blu ray IS the future...
mchief190 4 years ago
Hey Alfred, great vid as usual!
Wouldn't it be great if you kind of got hold of several SSD drives, chain them together in a RAID array, and used them for backup/preservation?
I suppose it could be done, because they come is sizes up to 64Gb, be they are frikin' expensive!
Alfa984 4 years ago
good to see ya back buddy! loved the video
wheres that NeXT video you promised huh?
SirTom909 4 years ago
And do not forget the Lisa! :D
We'll just have to wait, Al is probably working on it as we speak! <b>:=P</b>
jalland 4 years ago
great video. helpful info. love all of your videos. very unique !
thanks.
christm3 4 years ago
Hi Chris -thanks for the comment. More to come!!
adiblasi 4 years ago
alfred nice to see another video, great topic (youve got me worried now). Talk to you soon, Ally.
DreamBlogger 4 years ago
Ally! Thanks for checking in. Let us know the status of your burned data! Make sure you share the brand names with everyone as well!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Hi,
I had a similar problem with PC cd's as years ago they were gold covered cd's and they wouldnt run on the newer readers. Luckily I had an old P75 and this loaded them fine as it was an old Cd burner. So I networked this to the new machine and just used the old cd burner to back them up on my new machines hardrive.
Great video.
Dave UK
Tudave 4 years ago
Dave, great solution in deploying the legacy drive! Thanks for sharing!
adiblasi 4 years ago
How long would data sit on a flash USB disk? Their not powered when sitting alone, so could it wipe itself? I've seen those tapes... their freaking powerful. I desperately want a 1TB mybook, they look perfect for backup.
There was a prototype 100gig blue ray disk I saw before it was released.
BTW to make a RAID away you need at least 2 REAL HD's, a USB HD won't work :P
tripplehelix 4 years ago
Spelling: *RAID Array
tripplehelix 4 years ago
Holy crap -- 100 gig Blu-Ray? Perhaps they went double layer, double sided! Yes, those MyBook drives make for great backup -- and the price has come down a lot! Let us know if you get one!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Yer... They were double sided.. I think their probably going to make most disks double sided as it seems that programs are only getting bigger and bigger... Imagine the kind of program you could fit onto a 100gig disk... It would be amazing.
The mydisk will be my next computer hardware purchase. My 60GB HD is starting to fail, it's already died twice.. it even lost complete power a while back.
since wiping it with the mac FS it's seemed to work rather well lol.
tripplehelix 4 years ago
blu-ray sucks very much! hd-dvd it's the future
eduardrz 4 years ago
Their aint really a difference.
tripplehelix 4 years ago
my first buner was a usb hp thing foor 600 euro's (than it was gulden buth thats old)
djneo92nl 4 years ago
Hi DJ - does it still work? What was it's max burn speed?
adiblasi 4 years ago
no its gone buth i still have te power supplie (molex)
buth it had a a burning speed of i foud 8reading and 4 writting cd-r andt 2- writting cd-rw
djneo92nl 4 years ago
I wonder how CD/DVD RWs hold up. I mean they are in a way magnito-optical and don't have a dye layer that could fail. My understanding the blue dye CD are the worst.
LelandHF 4 years ago
Good point, Le. Not sure if the Read-Writes are better... or worse!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Very convincing Type O Negative voice...But why to the right stuff by nkotb?? lol... good to see you back..ROCK!!!
thelocalscene010 4 years ago
Great question - the reason why was due to that song being so mega pop, I wanted to see if a radical vocal change, narly synth patch, and reduced temp would make it better -- I think it did! LOL! Thanks for checking in!
adiblasi 4 years ago
I got a question, i have a mpeg camera too. when i put the media into imovie it only shows video, not audio. why?
MetalObsessed1 4 years ago
Hmm. Not sure. Film a 10 second test clip and email it to me to dibs5 at aol and I will analyze the audio track. You might need a converter program to convert PRIOR to going into iMovie. What is the exact make/model number of the camera?
adiblasi 4 years ago
awesome vid Al always wonderful stuff :P keep it up :)
JazzMalang 4 years ago
Mark! Thanks. Soon, I'll have that MegaCon video up!
adiblasi 4 years ago
greate video i know what you mean CD-R & DVD-R dont last for eva thats why i pay more even if u you are getting less if u are backing up importent data its best to buy better disks the cheaper you buy the cheaper you get the shorter they will last
arranmc182 4 years ago
Good point - go for the 'good stuff' if you can!
adiblasi 4 years ago
hahaha always lmao when i watch ur vids! "i'm really pissed" ur always pissed!! hahaha that's it im subscribing
macminiman01 4 years ago
Official confirmation that people like seeing me all riled up! LOL! Thanks for the subscription!
adiblasi 4 years ago
I had an iOmega Zip Drive and all of those disks are now vanished (so far as I know.)
w0rldpeace 4 years ago
Oh man, I still have some ZIP disks lying around....
adiblasi 4 years ago
SoundEdit 16 was the JOINT by the way. That came packaged with Deck II for a time ... who made that again? Great piece of software.
w0rldpeace 4 years ago
Great vid. Surely someway we can reconstruct the past in full bright color images and sound without loss.
Either it works or it doesn't. The trick is getting it to always fall on "it works."
That is if the universe is binary.
w0rldpeace 4 years ago
Ben! Thank for watching. I'd like to see Verbatim come out wtih a holographic storage device that stores a few thousand terabytes on a crystal -- or something like that. And, if you put that much information in a device, could it become 'self-aware?' LOL! Thanks for watching, Ben. I hope you are doing well.
adiblasi 4 years ago
Wow, is there no end to the stuff you own! I think if I ever need mass storage backed up I should send it your way, lol. Love the nuking of the CD-ROM, gives me an idea if one ever craps out on me.
Poolday89 4 years ago
Hi Pool - yes, my condo looks a bit like a music store and a computer store. I really enjoy electronics, but as you can see from my films, I have a mix of other activities as well. Yes, who would think that, technically, our microwave ovens are part of our data backup/security procedures! LOL! Thanks for commenting.
adiblasi 4 years ago
thanks for the tips on data storage. I'm glad i watched this. I have cd's that I've burned from about 1997. I should check out and make sure they still work. LOL!!!!!
grandplans 4 years ago
HI Grand - please share your findings with everyone in this thread. I am sure they will appreciate it. Make sure you reference the brand of the CD's as well!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Maybe we should all go back to paper tapes!
fdsman 4 years ago
Somewhere, in one of the storage units, I have some paper tape in a 'time capsule cylinder' - - and even some punch cards from the IBM mainframe. I hope to find them one day -- now THAT was a riot! Thanks for reminding me of the good old days!
adiblasi 4 years ago
those optical disks look like double sided DVD-RAM, basically a dvd-rw (but with much more rewrite life) inside a floppy type case.
fdsman 4 years ago
Yes, good point! They sure do!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Hahaha, I love how you casually throw "FF class" in there when you're talking about the Maxtor. Awesome video.
DrJohnBecker 4 years ago
Hi John - oh yea, lots of "FF" class things all around us! I'm scoping out some new "FF" class synthesizers to add to my collection -- if I get them, you'll see a video on that! In the interim, google the product Korg OASYS and check out the 88 key version of that synth. THAT is "FF" class, no doubt!
adiblasi 4 years ago
The only CDs I generally burn are ISO images. I back up my data using the 'more than one location at a time' rule. I have my music and pictures on both my laptop and my external hard drive (2 places). My critical family pictures are on my laptop, my external drive, my sister's computer and the memory stick in the camera (4 places)! I don't trust burned CDs all that much.
fixman88 4 years ago
Fix - great strategy! Thanks for sharing it with everyone!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Hah Al that's wild how you heard music that you burned in '96. I was a little rugrat then. Well hope your Las Vegas trip was good!
crunkjunk010 4 years ago
Trev! Thanks for checking in. Yes, Vegas was good -- drop me a note and let me know how your cruise went (or is that trip coming up later in the year?). TTYL.
adiblasi 4 years ago
Alfred! Yay! Awesome video.
Somedude1858 4 years ago
Some - more to come, so stay tuned!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Talking about that harddrives and CD's and stuff fail I'd thought you would bring up solid state media like those USB sticks or CF/SD cards etc. 3gig magneto whatever or a 4 gig thumb drive... option 2? Thought that solid state crap wasn't suppose to fail.
colinstu 4 years ago
Good point on the thumb drives. At the time, a 1 gig thumb drive was about 100 dollars, and the 2.3 DynaMo blanks were about 20 dollars for 2 gigs, so it was much more price efficient. Now, the thumb drives are much cheaper, however it is easier to shelve a bunch of the DynaMo discs. Good point, though. It prompted me to order a few 4 gig thumb drives right now!
adiblasi 4 years ago
classic as ever
pstce38 4 years ago
Thank you, PS. I know it was a 'long one' and not necessarily a 'killer comedy' but damn, I really want my subscribers and viewers to check their data. Thanks for the comment.
adiblasi 4 years ago
Great video, Alfred! I have the urge to go check all the discs I've kept from years ago. I was probably 13 or so when I first burned something though so its almost worth checking them just to see what I was archiving!! :o
Some really great facts and suggestions here and entertaining as always! Keep 'em coming!
shadyem 4 years ago
Shady - please report back (make a video if you can) on the status of your older burns. And, if it's not too embarassing, make sure you tell us what music you were archiving back then. LOL! Thanks for watching.
adiblasi 4 years ago
I bet it took several hours to render some of those loops. but seriously why Micheal Jackson?
LelandHF 4 years ago
Hi Le -that song was picked because... even un-looped "Mamma say, mamma, sa, mamma ma-ku-sa" is damn annoying!!
adiblasi 4 years ago
The dye layer where the data is stored dried out and cracked. The blanks for DVD+R DL are still overpriced, but I feel thats to discurage piracy (IE the blanks are more than the original material)
LelandHF 4 years ago
Good point - yes the dual layers are still a bit pricey. I hope to see them come down to the current price of single layer DVD-R's
adiblasi 4 years ago
Nice one, Al!!
MagnetoOpticals are definately really save Storage Devices ! I ´ve been using them as HardDrives for my 3 Emulator Samplers for almost 9 years now and they never made any trouble.
mastino64 4 years ago
Mast - damn FUNNY you say that, because I was looking at my binder of SAMPLE CD's saying 'holy cow, these are all gonna fade away one day as well. Good forward thinking on your part to embrace the magneto optical for your Emu samplers. My Emu 4XT hard drive just went -- I have to replace it. Hmn, might make a good video! :) Thanks for watching.
adiblasi 4 years ago
I shall have to watch this again and makes notes as you made a few errors. The one that stuck out most; The NT kernel does allow RAID containers but NT/XP natively stripes the volumes so if one dies, that it - Eek! {:o|
3Deity 4 years ago
Interesting on the native striping -- which delivers greater speed. From what I recall, under Windows XP, using the disk utility program, you can ask for it to mirror a drive. Please report back your findings! Thanks!
adiblasi 4 years ago
Hi Al, I have a pair of 25Gb HDD doing nothing so I may well try it just to see what happens. God knows whats on these drives, should be an adventure!
3Deity 4 years ago
ah... SCSI.... wow that was long ago....
hansolo1024 4 years ago
Yes, SCSI was the 'king of speed' at the time -- but, oddly enought, in the high end servers and what not, it still seems to be the drive type of choice for RAID arrays. Our DELL servers at work are all based on SCSI RAID 5 arrays, which give BOTH mirroring AND speed. Good stuff. Thanks for watching.
adiblasi 4 years ago
I nuke my bad discs too! I nuke for 5 sec. THANKS FOR POSTING THIS! IT IS VERY HELPFUL INFORMATION! :)
BobbyBrady2000 4 years ago
Bobby - PLEASE film a video of you nuking a few CD's! LOL! Post it as a video response!
adiblasi 4 years ago
I'll give it a shot in the next day or two! :)
BobbyBrady2000 4 years ago
I do a lot of photo archiving, the biggest CD-R killer is using permanent markers on them, the ink damages the burned layer of the disc over time. You can get a gold plated disc... about 1.75$ piece, never failed me, worth for critical data.
TheMadPole 4 years ago