Archival cost of hard drives

Discussion:

Steve Martin

2004-08-08 17:05:48 UTC

At the prospect of being able to archive HD content for future viewing,
I was curious what the "cost per movie" would be to just buy extra hard
drives and swap them out vs. archiving to DVHS tapes.

You can regularly purchase a 250Gb drive at Fry's for $99->$139
depending on the current sale/rebate.

A 2 hour movie at broadcast bitrates would be about 14Gb.
At satellite broadcast bitrates, it would be about 8-10Gb.

A 250Gb drive should hold about 16-28 movies, putting the cost at
$4->$9 per movie (depending on bitrate and drive size). That puts it
in the same range as DVHS tapes. Not a bad proposition. Of course you
need an enclosure (Firewire/USB2.0) that you can easily swap the drives
in and out of or you have to add the price of an enclosure to each
drive.

Just thought that was interesting.

--
Steve Martin
***@planomartins.com

Mike Kobb

2004-08-08 18:59:24 UTC

Permalink

This is what I do.

In my experience on my HiPix, though, a movie is about 17GB/hr because it's
about 8.3GB/hr.

I gave up on D-VHS because of all the problems I had on my JVC 30k, which
were finally resolved by JVC's recall/update but by then I got used to
storing on HDD.

Couple of things:

1) If the drive dies you lose more than one movie
2) It is not the most convenient thing in the world to deal with.
3) I'm not really sure that the IDE connectors on drives are intended for
lots of re-plugs.

I initially planned to just buy a removable drive system and buy trays for
each drive, but I could never find one I liked.

There's a company called Wiebe Tech that makes a neat little FireWire
adapter just for this sort of purpose, though. It plugs into the back of a
bare drive and provides power and a FireWire connection. I haven't tried it
but it looks pretty slick.

At the moment, I just have two 250's in my FireWire 8-drive enclosure and
use this for all my HiPix recording... Since I can't really record from
satellite, it gives me all the storage I need for weeks of saved-up HD, and
of course I can then stream to my HD1000 with StreamPlayer.

--Mike

Post by Steve Martin
At the prospect of being able to archive HD content for future viewing,
I was curious what the "cost per movie" would be to just buy extra hard
drives and swap them out vs. archiving to DVHS tapes.
You can regularly purchase a 250Gb drive at Fry's for $99->$139
depending on the current sale/rebate.
A 2 hour movie at broadcast bitrates would be about 14Gb.
At satellite broadcast bitrates, it would be about 8-10Gb.
A 250Gb drive should hold about 16-28 movies, putting the cost at
$4->$9 per movie (depending on bitrate and drive size). That puts it
in the same range as DVHS tapes. Not a bad proposition. Of course you
need an enclosure (Firewire/USB2.0) that you can easily swap the drives
in and out of or you have to add the price of an enclosure to each
drive.
Just thought that was interesting.
--
Steve Martin
_______________________________________________
Roku-tech mailing list
http://lists.rokulabs.com/mailman/listinfo/roku-tech

------
Mike Kobb
Senior Software Engineer, Roku
Get more out of your high-def TV.
High-definition photos, art, music and more.
http://www.rokulabs.com
tel: 650.321.1394 x12 fax: 650.321.9648

Mike Kobb

2004-08-08 20:04:21 UTC

Permalink

BAH. I meant to write that a movie is about 17GB because it's 8.3GB/hr.
Obviously, what I did write made no sense...

Post by Mike Kobb
This is what I do.
In my experience on my HiPix, though, a movie is about 17GB/hr because it's
about 8.3GB/hr.
I gave up on D-VHS because of all the problems I had on my JVC 30k, which
were finally resolved by JVC's recall/update but by then I got used to
storing on HDD.
1) If the drive dies you lose more than one movie
2) It is not the most convenient thing in the world to deal with.
3) I'm not really sure that the IDE connectors on drives are intended for
lots of re-plugs.
I initially planned to just buy a removable drive system and buy trays for
each drive, but I could never find one I liked.
There's a company called Wiebe Tech that makes a neat little FireWire
adapter just for this sort of purpose, though. It plugs into the back of a
bare drive and provides power and a FireWire connection. I haven't tried it
but it looks pretty slick.
At the moment, I just have two 250's in my FireWire 8-drive enclosure and
use this for all my HiPix recording... Since I can't really record from
satellite, it gives me all the storage I need for weeks of saved-up HD, and
of course I can then stream to my HD1000 with StreamPlayer.
--Mike

------
Mike Kobb
Senior Software Engineer, Roku
Get more out of your high-def TV.
High-definition photos, art, music and more.
http://www.rokulabs.com
tel: 650.321.1394 x12 fax: 650.321.9648
_______________________________________________
Roku-tech mailing list
http://lists.rokulabs.com/mailman/listinfo/roku-tech

------
Mike Kobb
Senior Software Engineer, Roku
Get more out of your high-def TV.
High-definition photos, art, music and more.
http://www.rokulabs.com
tel: 650.321.1394 x12 fax: 650.321.9648

Steve Martin

2004-08-09 03:09:13 UTC

Permalink

I wonder what kind of bit rates the cable Co's are delivering. I think
DirecTV is about half what you quote there.

Post by Mike Kobb
BAH. I meant to write that a movie is about 17GB because it's
8.3GB/hr.
Obviously, what I did write made no sense...

--
Steve Martin
***@planomartins.com

Mike Kobb

2004-08-09 03:17:37 UTC

Permalink

Interesting. The DirecTiVo HD box records 30 hours on a 250, which is
pretty close to 8GB/hr...

Post by Steve Martin
I wonder what kind of bit rates the cable Co's are delivering. I think
DirecTV is about half what you quote there.

Post by Mike Kobb
BAH. I meant to write that a movie is about 17GB because it's
8.3GB/hr.
Obviously, what I did write made no sense...

--
Steve Martin
_______________________________________________
Roku-tech mailing list
http://lists.rokulabs.com/mailman/listinfo/roku-tech

------
Mike Kobb
Senior Software Engineer, Roku
Get more out of your high-def TV.
High-definition photos, art, music and more.
http://www.rokulabs.com
tel: 650.321.1394 x12 fax: 650.321.9648

David Ondzes

2004-08-09 02:23:23 UTC

Permalink

Post by Mike Kobb
At the moment, I just have two 250's in my FireWire 8-drive enclosure and
use this for all my HiPix recording... Since I can't really record from
satellite, it gives me all the storage I need for weeks of saved-up HD, and
of course I can then stream to my HD1000 with StreamPlayer.

Mike Kobb

2004-08-09 03:07:03 UTC

Permalink

It contains 8 FireWire drive bays and a power supply, but doesn't have a
RAID controller or anything. I have it configured as two strings of four
drives -- four connected to my Mac for my music storage and four connected
to my PC for video. I got it only because all my equipment is in a 19" rack
and it got messy having individual drive enclosures stacked on a rack shelf.
This thing fits perfectly in 4U.

On the Mac, I'm using MacOS X's software RAID feature to do two mirrored
volumes (I don't want to re-rip 600 CDs if I lose a drive). I would have
done RAID-5, but there wasn't a software solution when I started the
project.

On the PC, they're just individual volumes so I can swap drives.

Here's the thing that's a real bummer. The enclosure I got doesn't have a
FireWire hub in it. The drives daisy-chain, and the bridge boards lose
power if you unlock the drive bay to remove the tray. This means that all
the drives "down stream" go offline, so it's hardly a hot-swap thing. So
far this has not proven to be a problem, but if it ever does I'll be buying
a bus-powered FireWire hub and putting it inside the case.

I got the case from FireWireDirect.com, but this should NOT be construed as
an endorsement by Roku.

--Mike

Post by David Ondzes

Can you me (us) more about this FireWire 8-drive enclosure. Can it do
raid ? I was looking for another drive today and figured I would just
daisy chain another firewire drive. Are the enclosures a better way to
go ?
_______________________________________________
Roku-tech mailing list
http://lists.rokulabs.com/mailman/listinfo/roku-tech

------
Mike Kobb
Senior Software Engineer, Roku
Get more out of your high-def TV.
High-definition photos, art, music and more.
http://www.rokulabs.com
tel: 650.321.1394 x12 fax: 650.321.9648

Bart Harrison

2004-08-09 06:03:10 UTC

Permalink

We use the Granite Digital chassis/caddies for just this purpose (actually
we use them to store uncompressed HD). If you daisy-chain you can remove
one drive with no effect on the others.

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg26_firewireidehotswapdrive.htm#btn_sale_hotswapfwcase

Bart

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bart Harrison
MPA - The HD Suite

HD Editing Systems, Consulting, Production & Post, Exhibition & Distribution
www.hdsuite.com
954-894-1221

Post by Mike Kobb
It contains 8 FireWire drive bays and a power supply, but doesn't have a
RAID controller or anything. I have it configured as two strings of four
drives -- four connected to my Mac for my music storage and four connected
to my PC for video. I got it only because all my equipment is in a 19" rack
and it got messy having individual drive enclosures stacked on a rack shelf.
This thing fits perfectly in 4U.
On the Mac, I'm using MacOS X's software RAID feature to do two mirrored
volumes (I don't want to re-rip 600 CDs if I lose a drive). I would have
done RAID-5, but there wasn't a software solution when I started the
project.
On the PC, they're just individual volumes so I can swap drives.
Here's the thing that's a real bummer. The enclosure I got doesn't have a
FireWire hub in it. The drives daisy-chain, and the bridge boards lose
power if you unlock the drive bay to remove the tray. This means that all
the drives "down stream" go offline, so it's hardly a hot-swap thing. So
far this has not proven to be a problem, but if it ever does I'll be buying
a bus-powered FireWire hub and putting it inside the case.
I got the case from FireWireDirect.com, but this should NOT be construed as
an endorsement by Roku.
--Mike

Post by David Ondzes

HD, and

Post by David Ondzes

Post by Mike Kobb
of course I can then stream to my HD1000 with StreamPlayer.

Dave Dodge

2004-08-09 18:24:21 UTC

Permalink

Post by Mike Kobb
This is what I do.
In my experience on my HiPix, though, a movie is about 17GB/hr because it's
about 8.3GB/hr.

But are they stripping null packets and unneeded PIDs?

Post by Mike Kobb
3) I'm not really sure that the IDE connectors on drives are intended for
lots of re-plugs.
I initially planned to just buy a removable drive system and buy trays for
each drive, but I could never find one I liked.

I run almost all of my IDE drives in trays. I used a $12 no-name
model for several years, moving a drive between systems at least once
a week without problems. Lately I've "upgraded" to some $20
CompUSA-branded trays that have more metal parts and extra fans, and
so far so good. Granted these are not hot-swap themselves, but since
you can power down an enclosure separate from the computer that's
almost the same thing.

-Dave Dodge

Dave Dodge

2004-08-09 18:16:28 UTC

Permalink

Post by Steve Martin
A 250Gb drive should hold about 16-28 movies, putting the cost at
$4->$9 per movie (depending on bitrate and drive size). That puts it
in the same range as DVHS tapes. Not a bad proposition. Of course you
need an enclosure (Firewire/USB2.0)

Don't forget to factor in the price of the DVHS recorder/player.

-Dave Dodge