Using Blank Blu Rays as storage.

Good morning everyone.

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

I have a lot of media on DVD-R and CD-R that I want to condense onto blank Blu Ray. I have two PC's both on Windows 10. One has a Blu Ray burner and the other does not. Here comes the stupid question part...if I burn blu Rays as data discs, even if I make it "playable on all PC's", I would still not be able to access that data on a DVD drive, correct? I would probably have to buy a portable Blu Ray drive for my other PC to use the discs I would imagine. I guess the generic "playable on all PC" message is throwing me off. I just wanted some validation before I buy a new Blu Ray drive.

Thanks for your help.

A DVD drive will not read Blu-ray disc. You would need a Blu-ray drive. Why Blu-ray? Portable HDDs are very affordable.

I figured as much, I wanted to be sure just in case I was missing something.

I'm a little worrisome. I have two 2TB HDD's, but I wanted a hard copy as a backup in case those hard drives should fail.

Thanks for your help.

Outsider418 said:

I figured as much, I wanted to be sure just in case I was missing something.

I'm a little worrisome. I have two 2TB HDD's, but I wanted a hard copy as a backup in case those hard drives should fail.

Thanks for your help.

For backups I would recommend external usb drives and the free version of Macrium Reflect. Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

You are correct, a DVD drive will not read Blu Ray.
Optical Drives are generally downwards compatible, but not upwards, as they don't have the hardware required a shorter wavelength blue laser diode and optics.

In general I prefer DVDs for backups as the active layer is midway in the disk.
In a CD it's near the label side, in a Blu Ray near to the reading side.
I have had problems with labelled CDs affecting the active layer, even in manufactured disks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_disc

Very wise to use another storage medium.

Outsider418 said:

I figured as much, I wanted to be sure just in case I was missing something.

I'm a little worrisome. I have two 2TB HDD's, but I wanted a hard copy as a backup in case those hard drives should fail.

Thanks for your help.

BluRay disks have capacities of 25GB for single layer, 50 for double layer. Neither are a good match to backing up 2TB hard drives.

That's also true of the BDXL disks, with a 100GB capacity.

If you just want to preserve moderate amounts of data, BDs may make sense.

If there's a robust, inexpensive backup medium for terabyte drives, I don't know of it. An external HD is the most practical solution, but external drives are also subject to failure. The point is to reduce the probability of data loss to a low value.

Think of those discs as archival, and not as storage. For what you want, an external drive would be a much better option. This way, you can maintain current backups.

Just to be clear, I don't plan on backing up my HDD's with Blu Rays. Most of that stuff I could replace, I just wanted to archive the stuff that I cannot replace easily like digital photographs, important documents, home video, etc. Hard drives do tend to fail, which is why I want to have that extra layer of protection for the more sensitive stuff.

Thanks for the advice everyone, always appreciated :)

In that case, archival media is what you want. My wife does a lot of digital photography. We have the photos stored on a NAS locally, and on a Zenfolio account. I also have her burn each years photos to a Blu-Ray disc as yet another method of keeping them safe.

If the information your backing up or archiving, is irreplaceable, best to have multiple backups in case a failure. If you maintain that level, you should be able to keep that data forever. Also you need to consider where to store these backups/archives. Do not store them together, make sure one of them is in a secure location some wheres else.

I'm one that believes that hard drives are more reliable than any optical media. Both will degrade over time, but optical is more sensitive to the environment that its stored in. Where as Magnetic recording media can be refreshed for almost forever. With multiple backups, your chances of both hard drives failing at the same time are slim.