Ask HN: What do you think of BDXL (100GB disks)?
I still have a need to archive data and I'm thinking about getting a BDXL writer and some disks. Is this a dumb thing to do in 2025?
It's also doubtful that BDXL readers are going to be available in the future. Physical discs are getting rarer and rarer.
None of the ones on their official site seem to be available though? They all link to out of stock Amazon pages.
It's not a grocery store buy but it's there.
It is absolutely a good idea, but with some minor tweaks and for the right use case.
It's a great idea if you want to have modern hardware that is not very expensive and predictable media that will be readable after decades. And preferably a lot of pacience due to max 125GB on each disc, or low space size requirements. Discs ain't cheap, though!
For regular backups (even seldom, like half a year) I'd still go for HDDs, as they are available at around 13USD per TB. Also USB drive enclosures are as cheap as $20 so you can store them with drives. But drives will fail if you leave them with no power for a few years.
But if your archive is supposed to be one time (no often archival of the same content with minor changes), or you want to store that for many years, maybe decades, discs can be the easiest reliable way.
Standard discs won't guarantee longevity. They are sensitive to heat and moisture. Use m-discs for that. You can get them at 125GB for around $20 a piece. So MUCH more expensive than HDDs. But these will hold up for decades, don't mind humidity and even high heat.
Compatible drives are at around $100, like Verbatim I have. There are modern ones, still. With full power via USB-c, quiet, supported by popular software.
It's easy to store a drive (and even an old usff computer) in some box next to your discs, in your off-site place.
I find it more likely to be usable and better chance of being available after many years, compared to, for instance, decommissioned tape drive readers that some homelabers like to use. Also much cheaper.
Search for m-discs tests on YouTube. There are some hilarious tests there where a guy compares them with standard disks by leaving them outside during sun and rain for days, digging them in dirt, washing with soap like a plate, burning with cigarette lighter etc.
Spoiler alert: m-discs work like charm after that. Standard ones won't even spin properly.
I had to read a 20 year old Ultra320 HDD last weekend, and I had to dust off an old Sun workstation to do that.
I've been using LTO tape for many years, trailing a few generations for cost reasons.
Every couple of years, I read the data from my old tapes and migrate it to new tapes of the next generation, as the cost comes down.
I only have about 500GB of stuff that I particularly want to keep, mostly photographs and very short videos, along with copies of various personal documents that would be tiresome to replace. The 1.5TB provided by LTO5 is more than plenty for my own needs.
- local nas with decent redundancy
- a single external hard drive
- rclone everything to B2
so a lot of redundancy at relatively little cost. I have less than 100Tb but more than 20, so 100Gb would be too small..
Anything else digital (like games, movies, music, books, …) I could buy again if I really wanted another copy.
Much more expensive, but makes sense for that use case.
I thought Sony's 5.5 TB Optical Disc Archive looked cool but it was probably crazy expensive and AFAIK it's now discontinued.
Aren't they discontinuing the production?
Plus you archive on dedicated disc type for archival which is much more durable.
Expensive to buy new, but definitely not hard to get.
I paid $80 for my low hour LTO5 drive at a government auction. Tapes (1.5TB raw) are $15 each new.
There are hundreds of used drives on eBay for relatively little money.
very subjective. Anything at that price range doesn't exist in my region at all. Also consider if there will be a government auction next time your drive fails. I found just one offer for $500 now.
My personal "final straw" was also, that nothing that I was able to actually buy or afford (reasonably, so not $1000+) required me to have at least a full desktop to throw it in and often drivers were "windows only, but there should be something for linux somewhere". Simple usb makes it much smaller and easier.
As far as drivers are concerned, SCSI tape devices have been in the Just Works(tm) category on just about every UNIX-like platform (including Linux) for the last 40 years.
Everyone's needs are different. Use what works for you.
Per GB, spinning rust is faster, cheaper, more mature, physically smaller, less fiddly, easier to obtain from Walmart at 10pm Tuesday night, and doesn't require special hardware made by a handful of manufacturers only in a short window of time.
As a small-run distribution medium, BDXL might be the right technology.
All with the caveat that BDXL might be an improvement over an existing archive practice. For clarity not archiving is not an existing archive practice and BDXL is not going to transform anyone into the kind of person who systematically archives their work...
...you will use BDXL as much as you used floppies, CDR, Zip, etc. Good luck.