Thread: Question for Blu Ray burners - which media?

I'm about to advance from DVD to Blu Ray for archiving my downloads. Anyone have suggestions for the best media? I think I learned my lesson when I started burning DVDs - cheapest isn't usually best (at least if you want your data to still be there after a lengthy storage). My general sense is that Verbatim and TDK seem to be the best brands (though the jury may still be out on Verbatim's LTH budget BR blanks). Both of them seem priced similarly online (~ $2/disk ... with 6x priced a little higher). I'd be interested to hear what others are using. Thanks!

This probably won't answer your question, but I think your archiving method should looked at rather than choosing an archiving medium. I suggest an external hard disk as the optimum method. But if you do choose blurays I would back them up again after 5 years since discs degrade.

Originally Posted by P2P_seeder

This probably won't answer your question, but I think your archiving method should looked at rather than choosing an archiving medium. I suggest an external hard disk as the optimum method. But if you do choose blurays I would back them up again after 5 years since discs degrade.

Wouldn't a piece of hardware (like external drive) be more susceptible to breakdown than a high quality brand of storage medium? I know "lifetime" predictions of media and electronics have to be taken with a grain of salt (how can a company truly say something has a lifetime of years without ever seeing if it lasts for years?) But most places I've seen argue that, for stability and safety of storage, written DVDs and BRs should be longer lasting than external hard drives. I suppose my own experiences of seeing external hard drives fail without warning leave me cautious. It would be crushingly depressing to lose 1 TB of data in one feel swoop.

Your shifting my question is ok though - I'm always interested in intelligent discussion on these things . And even if people don't want to use BRs for archiving, I think there's still a number of uses of writing them. In the near future, I see full BR downloads becoming more common - knowledge of the best media would be useful.

I use nothing but Ritek for my movies... for data I use the cheaper brands... once I run out of the cheap stuff I'll only use Ritek since the cost has come down somewhat.

I would suggest Verbatim or TDK or Taiyo Yuden / JVC.

The order is based on users experience with media from that companies.

I have put Taiyo Yuden / JVC at the last place because they are the newest player in Blu Ray media market but because of its outstanding record in the DVD market i guess they will go well with Blu Ray media too.