Over the last few years since I've been posting videos, I've accumulated quite a bit of video. In the past, when I would fill up my computer's hard drive, I would offload to an external drive. Now I have several hard drives and live in fear of the day when one or more of them will fail, taking my videos with it. I needed a safer, more permanent solution to archive my stuff.
What I settled on is nothing new, but in the wake of advancing technology has become more affordable to the filmmaker strapped by a dearth of funds. I'm referring to writable dual layer Blu-ray discs, that allow for 50GB worth of data storage per disc. They are easily stored, hold a decent amount of footage, and aren't as susceptible to data loss like a hard drive is.
The best news may be the price. I picked up a simple, no-frills burner on eBay for $60. It's a drawer-loading laptop drive inside a USB enclosure. You simply plug it in, your OS finds the driver and your ready to burn. The free sofware ImgBurn will take care of all your burning needs.
Just be careful when shopping for a Blu-ray writer. A lot of them are labeled as "Blu-ray writer/burners", but are actually only Blu-ray readers than burn standard DVDs. Always read the fine print before ordering. A good red flag for this is price. If it is less than $50, it probably doesn't burn Blu-rays (or maybe doesn't burn dual layer discs).
Tangible storage is also cheap and easy. Any standard CD/DVD case will hold your archive and you can store or transport your burner in a sleeve or hard case made for 7" tablet computers. Both these options are very cheap and very easy to find.
I realize this Blu-ray archive idea may not be so feasible with the impending 4k revolution on the horizon. Those large file sizes will need to be addressed in some other, probably yet undiscovered, way. Right now, if you are like me and still work in an HD environment, this isn't such a bad idea.
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