Alright so here's my newest dilemma with this program.

I am trying to back up 21 GB of data onto a Verbatim BD-RE using Toast 10.
Shouldn't be a problem.
Toast 10 doesn't recognize the presence of the external blu-ray recorder. I keep clicking to change the recorder from my internal superdrive, but it just goes back to superdrive.
Plugging in and out the blu-ray several times doesn't work.
So, I restart my computer (shouldn't have to do this to get it to work on a Mac!), plug it in, still doesn't recognize the blu-ray reader.
Fine, I turn the device on/off a few more times, and NOW FINALLY Toast recognizes it!!


Phew
anyways onwards to my real problem.... now I can't burn the data.
I'm all set to go, 21 GB out of 24 point something-or-other used, so I have more than enough guaranteed free space to fit it all on one disc.
I select my blu-ray recorder, and hit record.

But Toast gives me the following error message and refuses to record:



But I'm NOT TRYING to span multiple discs! And it's a brand new disc, I've been using these same discs elsewhere without a problem. How could it possibly tell me that a brand new blu-ray disc (and a second disc that I tried for test purposes) is less than 39.1 MB? It's a 25 GB disc!!

So, Toast just will not record my data and goes back to the mail window... and at the bottom I see this:




What the hell is going on????
I seriously feel like every single time I record data to a disc with or without Toast, there's always some weird/new problem that pops up and it takes me a whole extra day to back up data (pattern I've seen for 10 years). Seriously, what is this, f---'n Windows??!! Why is Toast giving me this crap?

[turtle777]

Backup on BlueRay ?

You said enough.

Get a cheap, portable HD, copy the data to it and tuck it away. THAT's a backup strategy.

-t

I don't trust hard drives. They break, they fail, they're not always portable, they have to be set up and connected (vs. throw in a disc), I can't mail my friends my hard drive so they can see my video albums (but I can mail them a DVD or a blu-ray movie that I created), manufacturers have had trouble properly designing high-capacity interfaces for external drives, and they're generally more expensive than optical media.

Amazon.com: Verbatim BD-RE

I can get 250 GB of blu-ray storage for $40. The cheapest new 250 GB hard drive I could find was also around $40. Although I did find a 1 TB hard drive for $55 that looks nice: Newegg.com - Eagle Tech 1TB USB 2.0 Black External Hard Drive with Blue LED base ET-CS1000TSIU2-BK

I'll stick with optical media.

[turtle777]

Well, you experienced yourself how iffy BD can be on a Mac. Don't expect this to change. It's an unsupported medium.

IMO, HD are much safer and reliable for OS X than a medium that required 3rd party drivers and apps.

-t

[angelmb]

Which Blu-ray burner do you have there?, mine is a LG BE12LU30 USB 2 and Toast recognizes it without any hassle.

It's an unsupported medium.

Come on, the icon is there !!



BTW, I don't trust hard disks either; you know for sure they are going to die sooner than later. I have already replaced two internal hard disks from my Mac Pro. I still have my Mac OS 9 related back-ups on DVDs though.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

BTW, I don't trust hard disks either; you know for sure they are going to die sooner than later. I have already replaced two internal hard disks from my Mac Pro. I still have my Mac OS 9 related back-ups on DVDs though.

LOL, BD was DOA on Macs, beat that

HD *alone* are not a sufficient backup strategy.
That's why I backup on HDs, and important stuff encrypted online.

I don't trust HDs to be free from failure, that's why I got a Drobo.

-t

[reader50]

Have you considered using Flash drives for backups? They have limited write cycles, but I've not heard of a read limit. A backup written to one might last indefinitely. There is a 1500 insertions limit estimated for a USB connector, but that's the only read limit wikipedia suggested.

I tried using Flash drives for backups. I tried an OCZ Rally2 32GB flash drive, which was advertised to be super fast, but instead:

A 209 MB folder containing 4,219 items took:
1:54 to transfer on my 2006 Memorex 2GB, a rate of 1.83 MB/s.
12:23 to transfer on the OCZ Rally2, a rate of 0.282 MB/s.
The OCZ Rally2 performed at a speed 6.5x slower than that of my old Memorex.

The flash drive was brand new. They said the controller was bad. After reading reviews on Amazon, I have yet to see anyone rave about any high-capacity flash drive, so I'm disappointed.

By the way, the problem with Toast was that I had two conflicting preference files in different languages. Now recording in blu-ray works fine.

[angelmb]

HD *alone* are not a sufficient backup strategy.
That's why I backup on HDs, and important stuff encrypted online.

I don't trust HDs to be free from failure, that's why I got a Drobo.

-t

I get your point. I don't rely on Blu-ray media, it just adds another layer to my backup strategy. And it is 'safe' since Blu-ray are far from being ubiquitous.

LOLed with my Mac OS 9 backups?, it gets better, I have the Archos FireZIP -FireWire- so I can access to the prehistoric iomega ZIP drives I still have around here.

I do backup on two internal HDs of my Mac Pro and two external HDs.

As for the 'cloud', it is just a pity I can't rely on the net to do backups for anything but small stuff which I backup to SpiderOak, Dropbox and LaCie Wuala service.

I found this backup strategy some time ago, it will give you 6 copies of your vital data and three copies of not so vital data. I think it is a rather good one to follow.

I don't have the money or the room in my apartment for all that.

Ideally, I'd have my Pro duplicated onto a RAID replica. What a beast that would be, hey, someone pass me a drool bib (preferably a clean bib).

[reader50]

With Flash drives, you aren't limited to USB. You could try some Class 10 SD cards. They have to maintain minimum read speeds, for video capture.