OT: rewritable discs

[Scott]

I have found some old rewritable discs and tried reformatting them. However, most of them do not work. Are they a thing of the past now?

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

CDs? No they are not a thing of the past, but I've never found them very reliable after a dozen or so writes and erasing. Often you get better results if you do a full erase first, particularly if they were made in a different drive. I cannot speak foor rewritable dvds as there are so many different specs and some work only in dvd video recorders and not computers. Brian

[newshound]

Yes.

[Scott]

Thanks for the quick reply. I should have said they are DVDs, so compatibility could well be an issue.

That said, I'm not sure what use they would be now in an era of memory sticks and HDD recorders.

[Max Demian]

I use rewritable DVDs to back up my laptop. And copy films from my combined HDD/DVD recorder to disc. (I use DVD-R if I am sure I'll want to keep them.) Saves watching the films.

HDDs are of limited size and sometimes fail, losing everything.

[Chris Green]

The disk drives I have are so much bigger than a DVD in capacity that DVDs are now pretty useless. I have just installed a new 8TB disk drive on my backup system in the garage. That's something considerably more than 1000 times the size of a DVD (I think, DVDs used to be 2.xGB, I think they got up to 5GB or so).

Even my laptop has a 240Gb drive, that's a lot of DVDs even given that most of it doesn't need backing up. I still back up about 15GB from it, at least three DVDs.

[RJH]

It's unusual to come across a USB stick smaller in capacity than a DVD-R, let alone a HDD.

A 1TB HDD holds over 200 DVDs and is IME considerably more reliable than rewriteable optical media.

[Scott]

As a matter of interest, are there any issues with placing a HDD in an unheated environment?

[T i m]

No, as long as it's kept dry (sealed container / static shielding bag) and allowed to 'acclimatise' before powering it up when you bring it back into the warm.

Cheers, T i m

[Chris Green]

I doubt it, it's very dry at least (actually a games room above the garage). The previous backup system was an old tower PC with a 3TB drive in it and that has run quite happily for several years without issues. The new system is more an exercise in reducing power consumption than a major step up in capacity.

The old PC consumed about 40 watts and the 3TB drive didn't spin down when idle. The new system is a Raspberry Pi 4 with an external USB3 drive that does spin down, I haven't checked but I think it probably consumes only 5 watts or so when idle. That gives a saving of thirty to forty pounds a year I reckon, not the fastest of paybacks!

I'm also wondering if the new disk drive that spins down when idle will be more or less reliable than the old one which was powered continuously.

[Max Demian]

DVDs are still useful for storing videos such as films, as (a) I have a DVD recorder and (b) DVD players are plentiful.

[The Natural Philosopher]

DVDs are no longer useful for storing DVDS since (a) there is no point in having a DVD recorder with a smart TV (b) you can have your own 'netflix' with a dlna equipped server and enough hard disc space (c) by using twin disks, you van have a mirror of your data if one were to fail (d)Dvds fail faster than hard disks and take up lots more room

[Dave Plowman (News]

IIRC, they don't have an infinite life.

[Max Demian]

I suppose I could connect a NAS drive to my router, but my TV is the other side of the room and doesn't have Wi-Fi.

"Smart TV"? That's a laugh! How long for? My current TV is supposed to be smart, but it never was all that much, and became less and less smart as Internet services were withdrawn.

[The Natural Philosopher]

All you need is dlna

[Fredxx]

I bought a cheap Android box that was also 4k and came with a mini keyboard incorporating a mouse pad.

That way I feel I'm future proof and not limited by the weedy processing power in the TV.

[Jethro_uk]

I'm fed up of saying it :) but my advice to all and one is to swerve all "smart" features on a new TV and treat it like a monitor to the connected "smart" device(s) of your choice.

It's a shame TV companies don't reciprocate and offer a smartless option at half the price for such customers.

[Fredxx]

Probably because the cost of the additional processing power is peanuts once you have a modest processor to control the TV and remote. Plus Netflix and other entertainment companies probably pay a non-trivial amount to the manufacture for including them in the TV menu.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Smarts don't really cost. couple of dollar priced chips and some flaky sofware

What costs is the case and the screen.

[Paul]

What's the media tag on them ?

Maybe Imgburn can show you that info, as it does the burn.

Paul