What is the best media storage?

Hi everyone,
Does anyone have any strong opinions on the best method of storing CDs and DVDs? I am in the process of either purchasing a batch of 100 slim plastic transparent single cases or a big zippered binder/case with media slots inside that can hold a few hundred discs.
Cost is not my issue but the preservation of my discs is.
Rio.

Preservation of discs can not be assured indefinitely.
In fact even well preserved disks may only last a couple years. You can optimize disks to last longer by only getting CD-R media from Verbatim, Imation, Kodak, and Sony, and the best recommended media from http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia/
Make sure the media is stored in plastic jewelcases, and does not come on spindles.
Do not write or label the media other than the inner clear ring. Use the jewelcases to put in paper inserts so you know their contents.
Burn at next to highest speed, and not highest speed.
Always keep at least two copies of your data at all times, and verify the quality of the media every 6 months.
Hard drives may yet prove more reliable. Supposedly blue laser, Blue Ray, and HD DVD are going to provide longer life to disks, but currently the cost is a lot more per disk. It still means keeping at least two copies of your data at all times.

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dishaster wrote:
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Sounds about right to me. My cable modem claims 7 mbits/sec download, 500 kbits/sec upload, and I get roughly the same speed you do.
Unless you're supposed to have much higher upload speeds, you're not going to improve on that a whole lot.

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Well, now, isn't that interesting?
I left my iBook G3 800 MHz in Mac OS X 10.3 because I believed that upgrading to 10.4 would tax it too much. Others have successfully run 10.4 on their iBook G3s, and with the upgraded hard drive, I would have thought you'd be okay with it.
I generally don't do more than one upgrade of the OS past what my Mac came with. When I want to upgrade further, I upgrade my Mac.
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Im going to go ahead and assume your talking to me?
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ds store wrote:
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You can share some files via a service like DropBox between remote computers, but to backup your whole system it's better to have it stored locally.
After all how can you restore your hard drive if OS X isn't running to get online?
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Why is local storage better than offsite? I had a house that burned down and can tell you from experience that local backup was totally useless.

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It may help to give more details of what you are looking for or maybe what you have looked at and decided against. What is best for one may not be for another if it doesn't include desired features.

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I want to back up my computer including for data, photos and videos (from my camera). I recently read that its a good idea to backup photos because apparently they can become corrupted and I want to do a backup of the HD anyway. What is the best type of Disc or DVD to use? I'm including the specs for the drive I have as some of you may already be familiar with. I know a little bit about using computers but have had trouble determining on which format best fits my needs. Thanks in advance for the advice.
Apple® - MacBook® Air External DL DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive
PRODUCT FEATURES
Multiformat support
For DVD+R/R DL/RW, DVD-R/R DL/RW and CD-R/RW formats.
Up to 6x maximum DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL write speed
Up to 8x maximum DVD+R and DVD-R write speed for fast disc burning.
Up to 8x maximum DVD+RW and up to 6x maximum DVD-RW rewrite speed
To erase discs and write new data to them quickly.
Up to 8x maximum DVD-ROM read speed
For fast operation.
Up to 24x maximum CD-R write speed
Delivers quick disc burning.
Up to 16x maximum CD-RW rewrite speed
So writing new data to discs is a snap.
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For optimal performance.
USB interface
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Apple, PowerBook, AirPort, FireWire, QuickTime, iTunes and Mac OS are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. MacBook, SuperDrive and iLife are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

Some of the decision of what drive to choose depends on whether you are going to use two drives, or just one.
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*Disclaimer: No matter what brand of external drive anyone promotes or criticizes, there are an equal number of people who will disagree. If I say I have had good luck with a brand, I have no doubt that someone will come along and say that it is the worst drive imaginable, and their favorite brand is the only way to go.

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I will be loading several MiniDV tapes into my Mac and want to store the video long-term (in a safe-deposit box). These are going to be home movies with some digital photos or scans as well.
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jf

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Well, now, isn't that interesting?
I left my iBook G3 800 MHz in Mac OS X 10.3 because I believed that upgrading to 10.4 would tax it too much. Others have successfully run 10.4 on their iBook G3s, and with the upgraded hard drive, I would have thought you'd be okay with it.
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Welcome to the Apple Community.
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I'm looking for an affordable RAID storage solution for my Time Machine, iTunes Library, iMovie videos, and iPhoto Library. To this point I've been doing a hodgepodge of external hard drives without the saftey of redundancy and I've finaly been bitten with HD failures. So I'm trying to determine what would be the best recommendation for my scenario. Small Home Office for my wife's business (just her), and me with all our media. I currentlty have a mid-2010 Mac Mini (no Thunderbolt), she has an aging 2007 iMac and 2006 MacBook Pro (funny that they're all about the same benchmark speed). We have an AppleTV (original), iPad2 and two iPhone 4S's.
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2nd Question: Simple is Better. Should I go with a Mac Mini Server and connect drives to it? (convert my Mac Mini into a server) or Should I just get one of those nice all-in-one 4-bay RAID drive solutions that I can expand with?
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1. Expandable and Upgradeable. I don't want something limited to 2TB drives, but as drives get bigger and cheaper I want to easily throw one in w/o concerns.
2. Simple integration with Time Machine and my iLife: iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto. If iTune's Home Sharing feature is currently the best way of using my media across multiple devices then why mess with it? I see "DLNA certified" storage on some devices and wonder if that would just add another layer of complexity I don't need. One more piece to make compatible.
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4. Security. I don't know if its practical, but I like the idea of being able to pop two drives out and put them in my safe and then pop them back in once a week for the backup/mirroring. I like this idea because I'm concerned that onsite backup is not always the safest. Unfortunately those cloud based services aren't designed for Terabytes of raw family video, or an entire media library that isn't wholey from the iTunes Store. I can't be the only one facing this challenge. Surely there's an affordable way to keep a safe backup for the average Joe. But what is it?
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6. Relatively Fast. I have put all my media on an external drive before (back when it fit on one drive) and there's noticeable spool-up hang time. Thunderbolt's nice and all, but so new that its not easily available across devices, nor is it cheap. eSata is not really an option. I love Firewire but I'm getting the feeling that Apple has made it the red-headed step-child of connections. USB 3.0 looks decent, but like eSata, Apple doesn't recognize it exists. Where does that leave us? Considering this dilemma I really liked Seagate's GoFlex external drives because it meant I could always buy a new base and still be compatible. But that only works with single drives. And as impressive as Seagate is, we can't expect them to consistently double drive sizes every two years like they have been -cool as that may be.
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OK, seeing as no-one replied (presumably because a lot of this information is on the forums in bits elsewhere) here's how I've got on so far.
Applications - just went through them. About the only one I needed was my media server app. Just downloaded and re-installed, had a quick look back though my email to find the license key and it all went on fine. Installation never seemed quite right on my old machine so solved that problem too.
Movies - New iMovies just copied across the clips and projects into their respective folders. Seems to have worked but haven't checked it all that thoroughly. Some duplicate footage here but I can trim this out at some point when I get a chance to go through here.
Documents - Just copied these across.
Photos - used an app called iPhoto Library Manager. You can download for free but have to pay to use the part that consolidates your libraries. Possibly if I was willing to spend a bit more time I could have got away without using this but given I didn't know the state of my different libraries and just how many duplicates I had this was too much of a convenience to ignore. Also got my library into a state where I can now spend a few hours organising it a bit better with Faces / Events etc.
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I have a really big media library...probably 7k-10k digital photos, close to 1,000 ripped CDs, and over 600 ripped DVDs, all stored on 1.5TB external hard disks in a 4-drive enclosure.
Due to a recent technical glitch, I find myself installing a new drive and moving the current library. My question is, what is the best way to set up iTunes' settings to deal with a media library that is both external to the Mac on which it runs, and spans multiple physical hard disk units?
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You can set them up as a software RAID using Disk Utility.
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What is the best media storage?

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