What is the cost of DVD storage in the UK? I am in the UK so my figures
reflect UK prices. I want to store data not music.

I would welcome any comments on my posting.


(1) I can buy a 160GB hard drive for approx £65 including delivery. (E.G.
Maxtor Plus9 160GB 8MB 7200rpm from Dabs).
The available formatted space on the HDD is about 150GB (in 4K block with
NTFS), so this comes to 41p per GB.

Sustained data transfer rates are fast (about 15 MB/s according to
http://storagereview.com/map/lm.cgi/str and
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/extSpeed-c.html) so the process of
getting data to or from the HDD is relatively quick.


(2) For CDs (not DVD) I would say the usable storage space is approx 500MB
(not 750 or 800 because it is rare to completely fill a CD and I believe
there is approx 10 percent used for error correction). I don't know what
block size is used.

I want to have a protective case and not use the very cheapest product. 100
cased CD-Rs is approx £22 including delivery. I need 300 to match 150GB so
the total cost is £66. This excludes costs for the CD-R burner.

Data transfer rates when reading are not bad at about 3 MB/s (according to
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cd/perfTransfer-c.html).


(3) DVDs. Now this is new to me. Are the following reasonable
assumptions.

Cased DVD+R or DVD-R 8x blanks are about £0.50 each (?).

What does the nominal 4.7Gb actually hold when data is stored?

Is the block size relatively large?

What is the cost per GB assuming the disk is only 80% filled?


Overall, I get the impression that HDDs are a far better and cheaper way of
backing up data for the home user. The HDD can be re-used and if the HDD is
plugged in (which can be harder than inserting a DVD) then the availability
is almost instantaneous.