External DVD/CD

[MIchael]

I tried vlc as it's my go to for all video. I broke it again trying to upgrade to 19.10 when it lost internet and locked up. I'm gonna reload it tomorrow and try again. Maybe I can install restricted extras....

[ab1jx]

I'm thinking of getting one just for offline storage, not for video.  Specifically a Liteon eb1 because I've had really good luck with Liteon.  https://www.newegg.com/lite-on-model-eb1...eb1+liteon

I assume you want to install libbluray but beyond that what about burning software under Linux?  I've used growisofs.  And I like X-CD-roast https://sourceforge.net/projects/xcdroast/ even though it's been dropped from debs so you need to build from sources.

I'm into terabyte drives lately but for some stuff I'd prefer it not taking up space on my nvme at all.  I have DVD drives but now it's time to go bigger.  Anyway, anybody had experience with these?

A single layer Bluray disk holds 25 GB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray  Oh, but Sony and Panasonic are working on an Archival Disk standard which holds much more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc  Reliability/readability seems to suffer when you go for density, par files may help, keeping multiple copies defiinitely.

[moonwalkers]

I usually prefer drives like https://www.newegg.com/pioneer-model-bdr...2W0AKH0298 because they are easier to open if for whatever reason they don't react to the eject button - the Pioneer models have a latch on the bottom that is easy enough to pull using Mark I finger, no need for any pins, paper clips, or anything else. Also not sure whether LITE-ON can write M-DISC disks, but I know Pioneer BDR-XD07UHD can, and those M-DISCs are supposed to last for a very long time as they are specifically developed for e-archival purposes, though something called "glass DVD" disks apparently are even more durable, though I haven't seen those. I've been using Pioneer BDR-XD05B and I'm pretty happy with it.

As to burning software - I prefer K3B, which is just like X-CD-Roast is just a front-end for growisofs and Co, except it's based on Qt and is part of KDE SC, whereas X-CD-Roast is a GTK-based app.

[ab1jx]

You mean because it's a top loader?  I definitely prefer ones with trays at least instead of pushing your disk into some mysterious slot.  I have a USB DVD burner now from Liteon, not used it much.

Whenever the size jumps there's always some mystery and misinformation about what will work or not, takes longer to filter down to Linux after the big money targets.  I'm just thinking about it so far, hadn't looked at them in a few years.  I just got Star Trek TOS from bittorrent and it's 23 GB.  I'm up to 113 GB of mp3 files, my 1 TB nvme drive is starting to fill up.  I wouldn't mind burning some to removable disks.  But I might skip over bluray and go  to the next generation, use DVDs for now.  My first ever CD burner was an HP/Philips and that was awful.

[Arwen]

For burning software, I use the CDRTools, which includes "cdrecord".

I too, want optical disk burners that support M-Disc burning. (Reading is possible by any player.) I don't know if they will last 1,000 years. All I want is to out live me... There are 50GB discs available too.

Their are also DVD-RAM disks. Many multi-function drives will be able to R/W those. And some optical disc drives also can burn 100GB and larger Bluray disc.

As for drives, I use a half height, 5 1/4" drive in an external enclosure. I don't need it to be portable.

Note that our PineBook Pros might not have enough power to run such a device during burning.

[moonwalkers]

You mean because it's a top loader?  I definitely prefer ones with trays at least instead of pushing your disk into some mysterious slot.

The Pioneer models I referenced have no trays or slots, they work more like portable audio CD players - you press the eject button to open the lid, and pop the disk off the spindle. But if the drive is unpowered (or otherwise doesn't react to eject button) you can just open the lid manually using the latch on the bottom of the drive. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BKUAAOSwL...s-l300.jpg is a good image that shows what I'm talking about.

P.S.: and I was able to use the unit I have to burn a CD with PBP. They include cable that can take power from two USB ports, if necessary, but it isn't always necessary to use two ports even for burning. The drive also has a socket for barrel plug power supply, though they don't bundle any with the drive.

[ab1jx]

I think going through a powered hub will probably cure that.  I haven't tried my DVD burner on here, but I have a few spinning rust hard drives in USB adapters and the one I tried didn't work.  I normally use them with Raspberry Pis and they work with or without a hub so I didn't think about it.

Isn't there a way to disable the current limit on USB through a software switch?  An option in the kernel command line I think, but that probably depends on the kernel.

cdrecord yes, that's what I'm used to.  Just grabbed a copy but I wanted to be sure it does bluray (it does).  It's an inactive project now.

I've burned close to 1000 (just buy another box of 100) CDs and DVDs.  When I went to read some stuff back years later I found they're far from permanent.  These were Sonys kept in tyvek sleeves.  So burning at least 2 copies and using 10% redundancy par files is my current approach.  Par files work a little
like a RAID, they're quite successful on mangled binaries posted over usenet.

[Arwen]

My next disc burn is going to be a 25GByte M-Disc, which will use ZFS as the file system. I'll likely use "copies=2" for my important stuff, (writings, source, blog, etc...).
It will be a test of ZFS on R/O media. With ZFS I can run a "scrub" to verify contents. (Just can't fix problems, live, even if possible.) And for the important data with "copies=2", assuming at least 1 copy of the data is good, I can recover it from bad bits / blocks on the other.

In reality, my "important data" is less than 4.7GBytes so I probably could have gotten away with single layer DVD M-Discs.

[ab1jx]

In reality, my "important data" is less than 4.7GBytes so I probably could have gotten away with single layer DVD M-Discs.

I haven't looked, do those come in rewriteable?  A multi-session burn will let you keep using parts of it each time, so you could have versioning even without being rewriteable.  You sacrifice a little capacity for that.

[jiyong]

In reality, my "important data" is less than 4.7GBytes so I probably could have gotten away with single layer DVD M-Discs.

I haven't looked, do those come in rewriteable?  A multi-session burn will let you keep using parts of it each time, so you could have versioning even without being rewriteable.  You sacrifice a little capacity for that.

As far as I know, all rewritables sacrifice longevity.