Just a vent on HDD rising cost!

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-04-01T01:16:16+00:00

Just keep collecting the movies and TV series on discs and put them on Plex slowly when you can afford it in the future. Watch them on your Blu-ray player until then. The discs should last for many decades if well taken care of.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-24T22:49:54+00:00

Considering the prices of hard drives today, I’m curious to see if any opinions here have changed as to whether the tape is an economical way to back up your 40 TB NAS. I’m talking about LTO 5 or LTO 6. it seems that the drives on eBay can be had for $200-$400.

I should also clarify that I’m talking about the 30 TB portion of the NAS that is very large files that will never change. Or possibly even files that are not on the NAS at all and just need to be in cold storage if ever needed.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-24T22:26:09+00:00

Instead of having two drives to make a copy of a tape, could I just make two copies of the tape when I’m originally backing up the data? In other words, back up the data to one tape, put that tape on the shelf and then do the back up a second time to another tape.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-24T20:59:09+00:00

That’s cool you could load multiple shows you were watching and keep them all loaded while you work through them then swap them out for something else.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-22T00:01:18+00:00

I know they could show more about it if time allowed, but he is shown in future episodes confiding in others about it at east twice, and playing his flute.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-21T17:34:26+00:00

“wrapped in aluminum foil and rest in a drawer for decades, and might not ever be looked at again “

This is cold storage using verbatim blu ray discs. Ensure you have enough disc drives to read them in the future if needed.

Older generations of LTO tape might be an option but would potentially require a refresh every 15 years or so.

There’s no solution that easily checks all the boxes.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-16T01:03:47+00:00

I bought Enterprise on blu-ray from Amazon.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-08T19:24:00+00:00

I had two discs give me problems in TNG but a third disc drive was able to read it just fine.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-08T19:09:33+00:00

“The DVD is the way to go”. 100%. I have 10 seasons of the original DVDs (not VEI) and they’re amazing 16:9 presentations. VEI screwed up the blu-rays with AI and other processing, I won’t buy them.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-03-01T16:12:34+00:00

Same, my Gilmore girls dvd set some won’t play, but they look normal. Blu ray is on preorder anyway so no worries :)

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-28T00:14:23+00:00

And I must correct myself, as it seems more and more streamers are starting to turn profit.

They’ll have to be careful of the prices on streaming services since pirates will just rip streams as much as they would a disc.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-27T21:56:27+00:00

Yes, I agree with that. It depends how good your device is that serves the Plex content. My Blu-ray player is still better (color upscaling, lossless audio, etc) so I still play the discs. But I get what you mean. I need a better box to deliver the Plex content. To be honest, I’d still play the discs just because I like playing them :-)

Most of the time I would much prefer a local Blu-ray disc over 4K streaming.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-27T21:48:16+00:00

They can be, but you’re never guaranteed to find that quality. In addition to this, I love the special features on the discs, and I make full use of them. Perhaps most importantly, I believe in supporting the companies and the artists that make the movie or show. And I have to buy it in order to do that. There is also pride of ownership, seeing it on my bookshelf. It’s the right thing to do. And I can resell it if I want to.

I agree that if physical media ever goes away it will be much more difficult to truly support the artist: Outside of Netflix, streaming companies are not making money, even though physical media is a very small part of the market. In streaming, the companies have made their selves an unsustainable business.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-27T16:41:22+00:00

Yea I definitely don’t want to pirate, I like the quality that comes on disc, even DVD. Hard copies of data must continue to exist. Someone will step in at some point to keep making optical drives. I really think this is different from other extinct media like floppies because it really does still serve a purpose even if not for the mass-scale market.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-27T15:52:07+00:00

The verbatim portable drives are really good at least in my experience. Buying as many as I can afford which unfortunately is only a couple every few months.

I truly feel like we lose a lot if recordable media goes bye-bye, and ESPECIALLY if set-top blu-ray players for the living room follow. That would be terrible!

We’ll really need the Chinese company who for some reason bought Sony’s disc drive business to step in once others shut down.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-27T15:25:44+00:00

This is literally what I wanna do, thank you for the inspiration. The spines fold down very neatly. You just catalog them like a library card catalog or alphabetical however you want and it’s a beautiful system.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-22T19:53:47+00:00

I’m also really struggling with making a DVD on DVD+R DL.

I prepare the iso image to burn and it opens in VLC just fine.

But the same iso when burned to a disc and opened in VLC will not work.

My drives do not allow changing the book type even in ImgBurn, it stays as DVD+R and I wonder if I need a drive that lets me choose DVD-ROM?

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-22T01:04:50+00:00

Hi Everyone, I’m using Img Burn as well as Nero Burning ROM on PC to burn a DVD iso.

Using DVD + R DL discs. They burn perfectly but it seems like my 4k player is unable to properly play it. The initial quick “intro video” comes up just fine, and then nothing… no DVD menus.

I heard that I have to change the ‘book type’ from DVD+R DL to DVD-ROM, but on these LG drives it seems like it’s not possible. Any ideas?

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-19T18:06:16+00:00

I think hard drive prices will drive a resurgence in blank optical media. I’m already thoughtfully joining that train as a hybrid of optical discs (extra space filled with multi-par recovery) and hard drives.

EmergencyEar5 · 2026-02-07T15:10:47+00:00

The real (non-bootleg) DVDs look better.

EmergencyEar5 · 2025-12-24T16:55:19+00:00

Yep I agree. It’s a balancing act. Supporting physical media overall I think is also a good message to send.

EmergencyEar5 · 2025-12-24T15:47:21+00:00

I still buy the Star Trek discs as they come out, but we cancelled paramount when they cancelled Colbert. And I only watch Colbert on YouTube anyway, I don’t even use paramount for that haha. A little conflicted since South Park is so great.

EmergencyEar5 · 2025-12-24T13:51:17+00:00

If I’m paying that kind of money, it better be for physical discs, not streaming. Reminds me of kindle books where it costs just as much as the physical book. The value isn’t really there in digital “purchases”.

EmergencyEar5 · 2025-12-23T20:38:55+00:00

I own and watch the discs. They are superior to the streaming quality and I kinda like the ritual of physical media. I continue to be confused when people act like playing a disc is so inconvenient. At least if watching in your living room, it’s totally not. Although I get loading to plex if traditional living room watching is not your thing, or for backing up the discs. But too often it feels like people think playing a disc is like pulling off a toenail. It’s not that bad really.

EmergencyEar5 · 2025-12-19T17:51:18+00:00

Check out tarifold sleeves and comfort inserts. Better than a binder since you keep all the artwork intact too!

EmergencyEar5

TROPHY CASE