Is there some kind of super-media out there than can store 500GB or so of data? I'm adding a 2TB external HD to my set-top media streaming box to store movies on, but I was wondering how I might back those files up. I don't really see any viable options. There is an old Iomega zip drive that stored 750GB but it was discontinued some time ago. I could back up the data onto BD-Rs but at $1/disc it would actually be cheaper to buy a second HD to act as a backup of the first! When did removable media get so far behind the curve compared to HD space? edit: On giving this some more thought, maybe it's a moot point. I'm basically just going to be ripping DVDs anyway, so the DVDs can act as a backup.
Zip drives were notorious for failing. I think you answered your own question, just buy a second drive and only power it up to do the occasional backup.
To answer your question, dual layer Blu-ray disc is as big as optical media gets for now, at 50GB per disc. Your main alternative is a backup hard drive, which is what people tend to go for now. The benefits are: - you can store a lot on them, so take up less space than lots of discs. - everything is in one place rather then spread over several identical looking discs. - with esata/usb3, they are much faster than optical discs. - network speeds are now fast enough that copying and distribution of data tends to happen over a network rather than writing and physically moving discs. There are some new optical processes in development. One method I read about was to store data in glass discs, that could store a petabyte. I don't know how long it will take before that technology becomes commercialised. There has to be enough consumer demand. Very few people need that much storage space at present time, so it wouldn't sell to computer users. BD provides high quality video that's going to be hard to surpass, so there's no real incentive in the entertainment sector either.
I stopped backing up on optical media a couple years ago because I now have over a terabyte of media. With hard drives under 10 cents a GB now, there's no reason not to have a handful of them. All my media is in a two 1.5tb drive RAID1 array on my PC and an external/offsite 1.5tb drive... along with a smattering of other files on laptops and loose drives. If BD-R or something similar becomes economical in the future, it would be worth having copies of critical stuff on disc again.
There's a technology know as RDX which uses a rugadised cartridge that plugs into an enclosure and at present they max out a 1TB but as larger disk drives become available (or you could have a a couple of 1TB cartridges). http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/12169-304616-3755725-3755725-3755725-3741006.html They are seen as another disk drive can connect via USB2 or SATA (internal models) and appearently there are USB3 models in the pipeline. Only drawback is they are a tad expensive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ble disk&name=Hewlett-Packard&Order=BESTMATCH
Hard drives are dirt cheap and plentiful. No alternative is as viable right now for decent levels of storage, although many are more durable. Depends on your needs, I suppose. Hopefully one day flash memory will catch up in price.