Storage - Blu Rays

RickST · 20 Sep 2009 at 21:43

Hi All,
I have been backing up all of my blu-rays, I basically rip them and store them as .iso files.

My problem is they are still between 20gb and 40gb each.

So my question to you is, what is the cheapest way to build a large (hopefully external) storage? I think 5tb with space to go up to 10tb would be good.

Any idea?

PermaBanned · 20 Sep 2009 at 21:58

What, like a NAS? It wouldn't be cheap... i suppose if you have an old machine with enough connectors you could use that. Give us a budget to work with.

Also, why are you backing up blu-rays?

cmndr_andi · 20 Sep 2009 at 21:59

Wow, thats gonna be expensive. I understand the desire to store the HD movies on your system, but there must be a better way. The cheapest 1TB drive costs £56. If you are talking about 40GB per movie then one of these drives will only hold 25 movies, ie storing each one will cost £2.25 in hard disks alone. In my mind you have three viable options:

1) You absorb the cost a build a huge storage PC/Server with 10TB of storage. Able to store 250 Bluray iso files.

2) You transcode the movies to lower bitrates but preserve as much quality as possible. I have seen many Blu Ray rips that are 1080p, 9GB and truly look excellent. Then you could store your movie collection on a much smaller system (I'm sure an extra 1.5TB drive added to your PC would do the job happily). However, converting each file will be a CPU heavy task and likely take many hours.

3) Get a nice DVD rack from Ikea for around £30, insert disks manually when playing is required.

RickST · 20 Sep 2009 at 22:00

lets say, sub £500

as to why, becuase i wrote a Media Centre app which loads .iso through daemon and plays them through vlc, just makes it easier to organise and play them

I think going down the secondary pc route, a nice media centre case full of hdds

Edit for cmndr_andi

I guess I could look at the low bit rate option, the idea was for a loss-less storage.

PermaBanned · 20 Sep 2009 at 22:16

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD20EADS) Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD20EADS) £152.98
(£133.03) £305.96
(£266.06)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £45.99
(£39.99) £45.99
(£39.99)
Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H AMD 740G (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H AMD 740G (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420W Power Supply PC Power & Cooling Silencer 420W Power Supply £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)
NZXT BETA Classic Series Case - Black (No PSU) NZXT BETA Classic Series Case - Black (No PSU) £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)
OCZ Platinum Revision 2 XTC 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Series (OCZ2P800R22GK) OCZ Platinum Revision 2 XTC 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Series (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)
Sub Total : £440.79
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £67.88
Total : £520.42

Put FreeNAS on it and voila. Expandable to 10TB, or 12TB if you used a 5.25-3.5 adapter. I really don't think this is worth it though.