Burning to disk

[Panzer Tacticer]

Soooo my computer downloading days essentially begin about 2000 and they reached their peak like 2006.

By 2004-5 I was grabbing stuff to burn to disk at a pace where a 100 disk spindle was almost a monthly need.

Today, I am at a point where having blank disks handy is almost not required.

In fact, I recently dumped 80% of my video collection onto 2TB sized drives as emulated disks all so I could take the disks, and store them out of sight and out of my hair.

A spindle of blank disks is 30 bucks typically. That's 100 times 4.7 gigs. A 2TB drive is currently something like 80 bucks. That's easy math folks.

It's a simple process of just make a fake disc, and dump it onto a drive. Sure if the drive dies and you have no physical original you might have just experienced a major trauma (already been there too hehe).

But the simple truth is, you CAN always re download anything you seriously miss.

Not sure about the game equal here, as I don't do the console game thing, but I suspect it will be a short time before swapping data between a storage method like a 2TB drive and a console is a common stunt (if it isn't already). All my PC games though, well they ARE just heaps of data.

With drives getting so damned cheap, heck unless you have spastic sums of data (some of you might), you can always just have redundancy eh. My games exist in more than one spot. Plus some options like Steam or digital download purchases offer the ability to redownload in the future making it hard to lose anything you paid good money for.

It's been months since I bought blank media, and it is not looking like I will need to buy any any time soon either. The last spindle is just sitting around largely collecting dust.

 

[Sterling]

While it's true physical media like CDs and DVDs are being phased out, for things like car stereos and other such archaic tech it is essential.

 

[Shinigami357]

Man, I am envious, right now, no kidding. My PC has 9+ gigs of free space, that's it.

 

[Depravo]

I used to back up everything I downloaded (movies, TV shows, cracked applications etc.) but since I switched to a new ISP with unlimited bandwidth I usually delete stuff after watching or installing. As you say, it's easy to redownload anything that you really need again.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Mainly I just delete what I don't use any more and keep what I do. I figure if I really want something again, I can redownload it.

The only reason I used discs was so I could burn a movie or game to them but I hardly need that anymore (most movies I just get on loan from my friend who just buys tons of movies and Wii games I just put on a hard drive now).

 

[Panzer Tacticer]

While it's true physical media like CDs and DVDs are being phased out, for things like car stereos and other such archaic tech it is essential.

Actually it is now common for cars to be able to indulge portable usb options meaning all you need now is a portable flash drive. Won't be too long before stealing car stereos has lost a lot of it's luster

Barely anything to remove hehe.

9+ gigs eh, must be rough, I noticed the other day dang down to my last 100 gigs of space, I better do something about this hehe. And my first computer seemed awesome in 1990 with a 200 meg drive eh. Likely buy a 3TB drive, and have a 2TB budge out the 500 gig in the portable that my son can have for his system. That would put me up to 6 TB internal and 3 TB in mobile drives.

 

[4-leaf-clover]

i still use discs sometimes but only for games, but for movies i just use my iphone

 

[FAST6191]

My last DVD drive burned out about February I think although it had been dodgy for months (interesting how I can remember just about every computer repair I have done in the last 3 years but not my own machine, wonder if that is a side effect of the profession so to speak usually makes for the opposite in the professionals personal implementation of the profession) and despite having cash to fix it, being at the computer shop several times, probably having a replacement I would never sell in the pile of junk I could trip over if I stood up and took one step and if all else fails [insert shopping website of choice] not being terribly hard to use I still have the dead drive sitting in the machine (albeit not powered).

Indeed other than the few machines that require it (non JTAG 360s although that should be a thing of the past soon enough), the odd client that wants a "proper" DVD or CD for whatever reason (usually because they have to pass it on to someone else) I think I am more or less in the same boat.

Once I can reliably expect computers to have USB boot I might even start leaving my CD wallet of wonder behind.

Edit
Re Cars and CD drives I know US car electronics are still stone age stuff compared to the rest of cars (and no car I have yet seen impresses me with electronics) but even a £25 junk stereo will have a line in these days and short range FM retransmitters are available as well.

 

[Sterling]

Re Cars and CD drives I know US car electronics are still stone age stuff compared to the rest of cars (and no car I have yet seen impresses me with electronics) but even a £25 junk stereo will have a line in these days and short range FM retransmitters are available as well.

Yes, but there is a lot of quality lost through those FM transmitters. With basic MP3s my car played CDs much better than radio casts. I'm actually wanting a stereo that can play data DVDs and any format of media. I could pretty much have a single DVD in my car with all the music I'd ever need.

 

[VashTS]

once 4gbs of flash memory becomes about .25-.30 cents (USD), physical media will be obsolete. imagine buying a 100 pack of microsd's. it will come to that, you pay less than that per gb if you get a good deal on a 2-3tb hdd.

its not obsolete yet, its good for back up purposes, of course blu ray is looking might sweet with its size, but the cost is a little more than i'd want it to be at.

i might buy a blu ray burner and a pack of discs for backups. it can easily keep a nice system back up on it.

 

[Panzer Tacticer]

Drive in my desktop is getting a little on in age I suspect. The only real noteworthy problem though is the eject function is mainly foobarred. I need to prod it with a thin rod to get it to open most of the time.

The ability to read and burn seems fine though (but I have a damn good drive too).

But if the day comes it has to be replaced, I likely and going the route of a blueray burner drive simply because dvd is a dead in the water tech now. Sure it's not like you can't still use them, but, it IS yesterday's tech just as DVD killed off the CD and the CD killed of the 3.5 floppy which killed the 5.25 floppy.

At one time I thought flashmemory sticks were cool, but beyond a 2 gig stick it's rare you need more than 2 gigs of stick it in your pocket data mobility.

A USB capable portable drive with 1 or more TB of data the size of a paperback is likely going to be VERY hard to beat. They just make them able to hold more and more data, but they all act about the same. The USB option is what reeeeeally makes them work though.

I have a 1 TB drive that has all my anime for instance. When I visit a friend, I can carry along my entire download fan sub collection (thousands of shows).