Mac Blu-Ray notebook upgrade shows Apple lagging behind

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  • Reply 101 of 109
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Judgegavel View Post


    Wake up, the one and only reason is the iPod and MP3's, CD sales have plummeted over the last five years everywhere not just record stores (resulting in record stores going out of business). I work with in a JHS, teenagers today dont buy CD's they laugh at the idea, they dont even own CD players, and they are the number one consumers of music.



    The fact that your resistant to technology and current trends is showing your the only one who's being obtuse. I understand you obviously dont like change, unfortunately your just arguing with inevitability.



    Don't forget the load of bad music that is being put out.
  • Reply 102 of 109
    resres Posts: 711member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Judgegavel View Post


    Actually (if I were you) that would simply leave me wanting a more reliable hard drive. I have yet to have any problem with a hard drive failure (but of course they do occur). Conversely I have often had problems with corrupted data on DVDs and CDs, for various reason. I understand you think the later is more reliable, but that still does nothing to support the success of either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, its still a step backwards in technology IMHO compared to flash memory.



    Sorry for the double post btw.



    I am glad you have never had a hard drive failure, but the thing with hard drives is that they are going to fail -- every single one of them. You never know when it will happen, but the manufactures are the first to tell you that hard drive failure is inevitable. Flash drives and dual layer DVDs just don't have the capacity to back up modern 250+ GB drives. Since Blu-Ray has over 10X the capacity of dual layer DVDs (50GB), it looks like it will be the best back-up solution for consumers for the next couple of years (if the price of the media comes down to a reasonable level). Five years down the road flash memory and holographic discs will probably be the backup media of choice, but we need something to use now, and I hope that Apple will do something to help meet the backup needs of its customers.
  • Reply 103 of 109
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Res View Post


    I am glad you have never had a hard drive failure, but the thing with hard drives is that they are going to fail -- every single one of them. You never know when it will happen, but the manufactures are the first to tell you that hard drive failure is inevitable. Flash drives and dual layer DVDs just don't have the capacity to back up modern 250+ GB drives. Since Blu-Ray has over 10X the capacity of dual layer DVDs (50GB), it looks like it will be the best back-up solution for consumers for the next couple of years (if the price of the media comes down to a reasonable level). Five years down the road flash memory and holographic discs will probably be the backup media of choice, but we need something to use now, and I hope that Apple will do something to help meet the backup needs of its customers.



    Redundant hard drives are still the best backup mechanism. Discs are easily to lose, expensive, and impossible to use with things like Subversion and Time Machine.
  • Reply 104 of 109
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Google has some great info on drive failure.



    Engadget blurb on HD failure stats from Google



    Quote:

    Google studied a hundred thousand SATA and PATA drives with between 80 and 400GB storage and 5400 to 7200rpm, and while unfortunately they didn't call out specific brands or models that had high failure rates, they did find a few interesting patterns in failing hard drives. One of those we thought was most intriguing was that drives often needed replacement for issues that SMART drive status polling didn't or couldn't determine, and 56% of failed drives did not raise any significant SMART flags (and that's interesting, of course, because SMART exists solely to survey hard drive health); other notable patterns showed that failure rates are indeed definitely correlated to drive manufacturer, model, and age; failure rates did not correspond to drive usage except in very young and old drives (i.e. heavy data "grinding" is not a significant factor in failure); and there is less correlation between drive temperature and failure rates than might have been expected, and drives that are cooled excessively actually fail more often than those running a little hot.



    I do not believe that optical disc is the backup medium of the future for anyone other than consumers.



    Tape is still the cheapest overall tech with a current roadmap to 3.2GB per tape.



    Hard Drives IMO will provide the best backup solution. Yes they fail which is why we have RAID. However they offer an unbeatable combination of speed and data storage that Optical just can't match.



    I will be backing up future data on raidz2 double-parity ZFS pools with Time Machine snapshots. Hopefully Apple will eventually allow us to either replicate our data to another location or replicate to online storage. Shifting discs around is about as old school as sneakernet.
  • Reply 105 of 109
    resres Posts: 711member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Google has some great info on drive failure.



    Engadget blurb on HD failure stats from Google







    I do not believe that optical disc is the backup medium of the future for anyone other than consumers.



    Tape is still the cheapest overall tech with a current roadmap to 3.2GB per tape.



    Hard Drives IMO will provide the best backup solution. Yes they fail which is why we have RAID. However they offer an unbeatable combination of speed and data storage that Optical just can't match.



    I will be backing up future data on raidz2 double-parity ZFS pools with Time Machine snapshots. Hopefully Apple will eventually allow us to either replicate our data to another location or replicate to online storage. Shifting discs around is about as old school as sneakernet.



    In the non-consumer market tape is king right now, but I think that it will die out over the next decade. Companies have just started selling the first generation of holographic disks, which have 300GB capacity with transfer rates of 20MB/s and a 50+ year archive life span. Over the next few years InPhase Technologies plans to sell 1.6TB drives with 120MB transfer rates. Other companies plan to reach 3.9 TB per disk. In the coming years, with storage capacities up to nearly 4TB per disk and fast data transfer rates, holographic drives are going to be hard to beat for archiving large amounts of data.
  • Reply 106 of 109
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gregmightdothat View Post


    Redundant hard drives are still the best backup mechanism. Discs are easily to lose, expensive, and impossible to use with things like Subversion and Time Machine.



    Redundant drives as in mirroring or parity correction are for resistance to hard drive failures, not an archive or backup. Redundancy protects you from data loss from a failed drive. Archive/backups are for recovering from corruption or mistakes, which happens more often than drives fail.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Tape is still the cheapest overall tech with a current roadmap to 3.2GB per tape.



    Don't you mean 3.2TB?



    Quote:

    I will be backing up future data on raidz2 double-parity ZFS pools with Time Machine snapshots. Hopefully Apple will eventually allow us to either replicate our data to another location or replicate to online storage. Shifting discs around is about as old school as sneakernet.



    The limitations to that sort of off-site storage has nothing to do with Apple, namely, the link to the outside world.
  • Reply 107 of 109
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Redundant drives as in mirroring or parity correction are for resistance to hard drive failures, not an archive or backup. Redundancy protects you from data loss from a failed drive. Archive/backups are for recovering from corruption or mistakes, which happens more often than drives fail.




    I think I wasn't clear.



    I meant that for backups, you should actually use one or two regular magnetic drives, rather than using DVDs. Not that a RAID solution would work, which is what I think you think I said.



    The odds of simultaneous failure are low, it's easier to restore, and you don't have to worry about keeping track of 50 discs. With Leopard, I'll be getting an Airport Extreme, hook up a USB hub and a few hard drives to it.
  • Reply 108 of 109
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Res View Post


    In the non-consumer market tape is king right now, but I think that it will die out over the next decade. Companies have just started selling the first generation of holographic disks, which have 300GB capacity with transfer rates of 20MB/s and a 50+ year archive life span. Over the next few years InPhase Technologies plans to sell 1.6TB drives with 120MB transfer rates. Other companies plan to reach 3.9 TB per disk. In the coming years, with storage capacities up to nearly 4TB per disk and fast data transfer rates, holographic drives are going to be hard to beat for archiving large amounts of data.



    Most companies won't even look at Inphase or holographic storage. In addition to high pricing it's still far behind Tape and HDD for performance.



    Quote:

    LTO-4



    Specification released to licensees on 11th January 2007 [4]

    Products based on LTO-4 expected in the first half of 2007.

    Doubled capacity again to 800 GB.

    Added drive level encryption.

    Increase data transfer rate by 50% to 120 MB/s.



    LTO 4 is going to deliver that next year. 1.6TB on a tape with 120MBps throughput.



    Here's the DLT roadmap



    http://www.dlttape.com/Roadmap/index.aspx
    • DLT S5 - 3TB 200MBps

    • DLT S6 - 6TB 400MBps

    • DLT S7- 12TB 800MBps

    I'll go on record as saying Inphase is a joke. Holographic storage will never gain traction in the Enterprise and Optical formats are basically dead for backup. They don't have the performance or the durability that Tape offers.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    Redundant drives as in mirroring or parity correction are for failure resistance, not an archive or backup. Redundancy protects you from data loss from a failed drive. Archive/backups are for recovering from corruption or mistakes, which happens more often than drives fail.



    Don't you mean 3.2TB?



    The limitations to that sort of off-site storage has nothing to do with Apple, namely, the link to the outside world.



    I disagree on some points. RAID based storage isn't optimum for archiving but companies are very much utilizing RAID storage as a backup medium and then choosing to archive to tape. D2D2T is actually a buzzword hyped workflow that actually works. Contrary to erroneous beliefs that tape drives are slow a LTO-3 requires damn fast computer to spool data and as we progress to LTO 4 and beyond the problem will be exacerbated.



    With Today's RAID 6 and tomorrow's ZFS and other more robust fs I can see companies keeping more data backup on nearline storage arrays prior to longterm archival. Most companies can track how many restores they have to do and from that data ascertain how long they should keep backup data on nearline storage. Plus with end user restore features coming the longer you can safely keep data on nearline storage the less IT intervention you need.



    Yes I meant 3.2TB ..thank you.



    Please don't take this as a denigration of Inphase tech. It will find a niche it's not going to usurp Linear Tape Open options developed by a consortium of the heavy hitters versus a trickle of Holographic storage vendors.
  • Reply 109 of 109
    resres Posts: 711member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    Most companies won't even look at Inphase or holographic storage. In addition to high pricing it's still far behind Tape and HDD for performance.







    LTO 4 is going to deliver that next year. 1.6TB on a tape with 120MBps throughput.



    Here's the DLT roadmap



    http://www.dlttape.com/Roadmap/index.aspx
    • DLT S5 - 3TB 200MBps

    • DLT S6 - 6TB 400MBps

    • DLT S7- 12TB 800MBps

    I'll go on record as saying Inphase is a joke. Holographic storage will never gain traction in the Enterprise and Optical formats are basically dead for backup. They don't have the performance or the durability that Tape offers.



    Those number are using 2:1 compression, so you get only half that in native capacity (you can also compress files for other media if you are so inclined). Saying that "Optical formats are basically dead for backup" is somewhat premature: holographic storage is in it infancy while DLT is a matured product. I think that once the technology has had time to develop it will be a far better choice most archival needs than DLT products. Of course only time will tell, and 10 years from now there might be something new that blows both DLT and holographic storage away.



    BTW: why do you think that tape has better durability than holographic storage? I've been using tape for years and have never been happy with its reliability, or the necessary head cleaning, etc.
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