Is it really worth buying CDs?

[rkyburz]

Do you have a plan for when the hard drive fails ?
(which it will eventually ............... )

Yes, drives will fail, and they *did* in my case - however, I lost nothing, as I'm using RAID-5 for the internal drives — plus, I have an external backup (Apple's TimeMachine), also on RAID-5. With Apple, you could also use iCloud to store / back out your music, but that has a ceiling of 25,000 tracks / "songs"; I'm about to exceed that limit, so I chose not to use iCloud.

[johnb]

I would caution about totally relying on RAID 5, etc.

It is security against any one HDD in the array failing but it doesn't help if the NAS device fails (as it will do eventually) or if there is burglary or fire (rkyburz wisely has a backup on another HDD).

I don't bother with RAID, instead I periodically mirror the data onto external HDDs (using Beyond Compare).

[scottycelt]

I rarely buy CDs these days. Like others here I have everything now on computer which is so much quicker and more convenient. I do miss the old LPs and covers though ... there was a sense of owning something of real value then, a sense I never quite developed with the advent of CDs

For a computer backup I suggest double-sided DVDs which can hold a whopping 8.5gb of stuff (perfect for endlessly repetitive, version-collecting Brucknerians ). These can be purchased quite cheaply now in places like T***o ...

[amateur51]

I rarely buy CDs these days. Like others here I have everything now on computer which is so much quicker and more convenient. I do miss the old LPs and covers though ... there was a sense of owning something of real value then, a sense I never quite developed with the advent of CDs

For a computer backup I suggest double-sided DVDs which can hold a whopping 8.5gb of stuff (perfect for endlessly repetitive, version-collecting Brucknerians ). These can be purchased quite cheaply now in places like T***o ...

I suspect it's not an exact science (technopeasant here) but how many CDs does this equate to, please?

[Bryn]

I suspect it's not an exact science (technopeasant here) but how many CDs does this equate to, please?

Between a third and half of what you could get on a single layer Blu-ray disc.

[Stunsworth]

I suspect it's not an exact science (technopeasant here) but how many CDs does this equate to, please?

If they've been ripped losslessly to say FLAC or ALAC format it would be around 24.

Personally I back up to a second hard drive rather than optical media.

[scottycelt]

Between a third and half of what you could get on a single layer Blu-ray disc.

True ... but you need a Blu-ray recorder/player for that while many current cheapo DVD writers will also burn double-sided.

To answer Ams's query it obviously depends on the contents of the CD and what quality of sound you are happy with when ripping from that CD, as to how many you can fit onto 8.5 gb ?

An external HD is an obvious alternative, of course, and for those with very large collections it is clearly the tidier option.

[rkyburz]

(...)

For a computer backup I suggest double-sided DVDs which can hold a whopping 8.5gb of stuff (perfect for endlessly repetitive, version-collecting Brucknerians ). These can be purchased quite cheaply now in places like T***o ...

Even if you just use single-sided optical, writable media, and even if you are careful not to use felt pens, sticky labels, etc. to label the discs: writable optical media have a *very* finite lifetime — I would not count on such media to last more than a couple years; if this is your backup, then you want to make 2, better 3 copies — and with this, the effective capacity of a single-sided DVD (4.7 GB) is about that of 2 CDs (800 MB each) ... ;-)

[Stunsworth]

...and with this, the effective capacity of a single-sided DVD (4.7 GB) is about that of 2 CDs (800 MB each) ... ;-)

If you've ripped them in a lossless compressed format they'll take up roughly half the space of the original CD. I've checked some albums in my library at random, and most are 300 mB or less.

[johnb]

I really don't like the idea of totally relying on DVDs or for backups, though DVD-RAM discs are allegedly more reliable.

As far as I am concerned the only sensible method is to use an external hard drive. It is also much quicker and gives easy access. You can also use software to mirror all or part of your PC's hard drive to an external HDD, making the process semi-automatic.

[Bryn]

Even if you just use single-sided optical, writable media, and even if you are careful not to use felt pens, sticky labels, etc. to label the discs: writable optical media have a *very* finite lifetime — I would not count on such media to last more than a couple years; if this is your backup, then you want to make 2, better 3 copies — and with this, the effective capacity of a single-sided DVD (4.7 GB) is about that of 2 CDs (800 MB each) ... ;-)

It very much depends on the quality of the discs employed. All of the CD-Rs I burned early in 1998, when I first got a 2X HP burner, remain in good fettle. However, they (both Sony and Kao branded discs) had a gold reflective layer. Some aluminium reflective layered discs I have used in the interim have failed, but only the cheap unbranded variety. Most branded CD-Rs from 10 years ago remain fine.

Currently spinning here, Amanda Hurton's The Garden Bench (for 2 vibraphones), composed when she was a 14 year old student of John White, recorded in concert in November 1977, digitized and burned onto a cheap Samsung aluminium reflective layered CD-R in November 1998. No hint of a glitch throughout the disc (which also includes works by John White, Gavin Bryars and Dave Smith).

[rkyburz]

Sure, there will be discs holding 50 years, and some types are better than others — but just picture a collector with shelves full of self-burned optical media, written, say, over 20 years, and then you eventually run into *one* that fails: I would not want to be in that person's shoes ...
I'm not opposed to using CD-Rs — I use them myself for downloaded music, as I like to have a hard copy — but *not* as the sole backup!

[Cheapskater]

As far as I am concerned the only sensible method is to use an external hard drive. It is also much quicker and gives easy access. You can also use software to mirror all or part of your PC's hard drive to an external HDD, making the process semi-automatic.

Seconded, that's what I do. Quick and effective, but luckily I've never needed to restore.

[Bryn]

Seconded, that's what I do. Quick and effective, but luckily I've never needed to restore.

Sorry, but I have had rather more audio data loss though hard disc failure than I have from optical media. All forms of storage need backups.

[hafod]

I know almost nothing about optical media, computers etc (when I was at university the computer was the size of a garden shed - an Elliot 803 if memory serves). Over more than 25 years I have never had a commercial cd fail. Presumably these are superior (and the blanks much more expensive) to those one burns oneself?