So was telling my friend about how awesome my new Blu-Ray burner is, even though it set me back $250. And then we began to argue about was it finacially worth it to get Blu-Ray Discs and such, so I pulled some numbers and did some math. Results were kinda interesting. Whats everyones preference still? Does this data change your mind? Disscus...

Using google shopping as a means to find average prices I have found that:
Blu-Ray discs are sold individualy for approx. $15
DVD's are sold in 100 pack for $32 (newegg)
CD's on average are about $0.79 (sold in quantities too big to list )

Data Sizes for the media (single sided where applicable)
Blu-Ray - 25gigs
DVD - 4.7gigs
CD - 700mbs

Cost Efficency of Media (byte/dollar)
Blu-Ray - 1.67 gigabytes per dollar
DVD - 716.8 megabytes per dollar
CD - 886.1 megabytes per dollar

you didnt add the cost of the burner. $250 for blu, less than 30 for dvd/cd. i guess maybe if you do enough burning, it might even itself out. but for those of us who burn only a few gigs a month, if that, then its not worth it.

This post has been edited by bflosabre91: 30 Dec, 2008 - 01:54 PM

Moved to the corner cubicle. Interesting topic.

if the only thing you were using was to backup harddrives then the blu ray would make sense. but you didn't factor in wasted space.

a cd is a pain because i can fill up one with just acouple high res photoshop files, but a dvd normally has leftover space. for transferring individual files, or sets of files, or even projects, a blu ray would be massive overkill.

and this is why flash drives are the real way to move files.

long term storage / backup fine, but other than that blu ray isn't worth it for me

how long does it take you to burn a blu-ray disc? i do eventually need to upgrade my movie *backup* system to the new stuff.

I guess you have point on wasted space, especially since theres no Blu-Ray re-writables yet. Since media is still comparabley small to storage units out there it isnt that big of a problem, which does make it most sensible for backup. Since the data is byte/dollar, thats what you would look for in back up anyway. But you also need asses the value of being able to play the latest media. I got the player since i built a new computer I dont need to invest in a seperate ( another purchase of starting at around $300) Blu-Ray player just to enjoy the Dark Knight . Lastly computers only last a few years anyway so is it worth your investment to "future-proof" your computer?



Forgot to address burn speed in my last post. Im not sure how long it took the blu-ray cause when i backed up my 5 seasons of Futurama (just over 13gigs), i went to lunch and came back and it was done. I like the particular one i have cause it can read/write CDs and DVDs as well, and thats what i most often do. I burn a couple movies to a dvd for a friend or party or something, and that takes much less time now.

You missed the most cost efficient removable media; external hard drives.

All this removable disk tech has much debated shelf life, particularly on rewrites. Hard drives are stable and can be used over and over without fear. Speed is superior as well.

I quick look at newegg gives me these two on the first line:

• $250 Western Digital My Book 2TB
• Western Digital 640GB

The cost efficiency for both of these is real close, at about 8GB per dollar.

If you want to get cute and buy an ultra small external hard drive, the cost doubles; still beating the disks easily.

I have a 160GB portable HDD that I can fit in my shirt pocket, cost me like $60, that's a lot of bang for the buck if you ask me (over 2.5 GB per dollar)

I agree with the hard drives, but I've heard the My Books fail often. My dad got a weird looking Seagate one that's starting to get more capacity and cheaper in models.

Ya funny I forgot about extrernals cause i have 2 sitting next to me. I have a 500gig Seagate, and 1Tb Cavalry (I reccomend either both work great). I got the Calvary HD for $120, which puts effiency at 8.3gigs/$. So yes externals take the cake. And everyone knows its getting cheeper.

I haven't used the portable ones yet, and only heard rumors about shaky reliability, but disregarding that cause I can't confirm it, I'd still wonder how fast the portable ones are. Most externals plug into juice the power and access time (Might be a nice follow up thread access time per byte), and i know that my 1TB HDD sometimes takes a min to go access some folders (Im using about 70% of it right now). Disc media doesnt do that for me, and even if you experience lag time going through DVD/CD, I highly doubt that Blu-Ray would be that slow.

My only true beef about Externals is that they take up a USB spot and a electric port.

Is the math here correct?

A Blu-Ray disc stores 25 gigs, and costs $15. 25 gigs / $15 == 1.667 gigs per dollar. So far, so good.

And a CD stores 700 megs (what's "mbs"?) for $0.79. 700 megs / $0.79 == 886.1 megs per dollar, sure.

A DVD comes in a pack of 100 for $32, so that means each disc costs $0.32. If the disk holds 4700 megs, then 4700 megs / $0.32 == 14687.50 megabytes per dollar. How did you get 716.8 megabytes per dollar? If that's your ratio, then 4700 megs per disk / 716.8 megs per dollar == 6.55 dollars per disk.

I was wondering the same thing Mike. I wasn't going to say anything and chalk it up to some math error or something.

I also checked on the CD-Rs and on average they are still lower in cost than the DVD. It doesn't make sense that the DVD discs would be .32 and the CD be .79.

Packs of 100 CD-R on newegg can cost anywhere between $17 - $24 and DVDs are low end around 20 (for the dirt cheap brands) up to mid 30s.

So I am not sure where all these numbers are coming from but unless there is a sale price somewhere throwing this all out of whack the CDs should be cheaper than the DVD packs.

This post has been edited by Martyr2: 31 Dec, 2008 - 08:00 PM

I think the issue was i was just using google shopping and looking on what average they cost. Newegg 100 count for very cheap does throw off the math.

the .79 per cd

now NewEgg :
100 DVD for $27.99 = $0.27 a pop => 2.6gig/$
100 CD for $17.99 = $0.17 a pop => 4.1gig/$
1TB Cavalry External still takes the cake at 8.3gig/$

So yes 1 in bulk one not does mess up my numbers. Thank You for that catch.

Edit:
Now if i can believe those numbers, then the Blu-Ray (1.67gig/$) are actually my worst bet? Now i need to rethink my arguments...

This post has been edited by SwiftStriker00: 31 Dec, 2008 - 11:56 PM

I think this is the wrong argument, though. Convenience, longevity, portability, IOPS, transfer speed, and so on are all factors. DVDs sound great, but we have lots of older servers that don't have DVD drives. The external drive sounds great, but the same servers don't have USB 2.0 ports, not to mention eSATA ports. Even my desktop machines don't have easily accessbile USB 2.0 ports.

There are many more axis to your decision, and you've got to figure out for yourself which is most important to you.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for math... and yours is way off.

DVD $27.99 = $0.28 => 4.7gig/$0.28 = 16.8 gig / $
CD $17.99 = $0.18 => 0.7gig/$0.18 = 3.88 gig / $

Make sure you do "reality checks" on your figures. If you get CDs being twice as efficient per dollar... but they are only 40% cheaper with 80% less space...

hmmmm i was thinking about getting a blueray burner but maybe i will reconsider now