cooper Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 As people keep adding storage to their system, a need for backing up that storage becomes ever more pressing. The problem is that for effectively backing up your 500 gig harddisk, those 9gb DVDs are both pricy and just too damned small. Enter the tapestreamer. To date still the best bang for your buck when it comes to storing data securely. The only problem is that the tape drives, particularly for the high-capacity models, are rather expensive. The thing that struck me as odd is that you can hook up a camcorder to your computer, and transfer data to and from the tape in its bowels. Does this data really have to be video data? Is there a specific reason why you can't use a camcorder as a cheap tapestreamer? If not, why does it appear that nobody is doing this? Seems like a sensible thing to do to me. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 It depends, it used to be the case that a lot of entry level/consumer mini-dv cameras let you copy data from them, but not to them. This may have changed but 2 years ago you needed £1K's (or local) worth of camera for this feature. Which kinda puts it in the range of a regular data drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 I seem to remember there being products to back up to VHS tape too but I don't really remember much about them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoyBoy Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 That would be kickass if it worked. Cheap tapedrives... mmm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armadaender Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Here's my question then: How is data saved on a vhs? If it's magnetic then theoritically it would be capable of holding magnetic data just like a hdd. Right? Wrong? I honestly don't know. I hav't touched a VHS in about 5 or so years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Well I just did a bit of research and apparently it varies but I've heard figures around about 2.7GB on a 160 minute tape: http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/VideoBackup.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Personally I wouldn't trust bootlegged porn to a VHS cassett, let alone backed up data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted October 3, 2006 Author Share Posted October 3, 2006 Check this shit out! This is _precisely_ what I was suggesting. Segment material? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Well besides reliability (which according to that page isn't actually that bad) I'd imagine seek times would be horrific... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armadaender Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Personally I wouldn't trust bootlegged porn to a VHS cassett, let alone backed up data. Neither would I, that's why I...wait a second. Well, it's an interesting idea nonetheless. DV Backup supports maxium storage sizes of 11.5GB in SP mode or 17.5GB in LP mode. Not bad, not bad at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Check this shit out!This is _precisely_ what I was suggesting. Segment material? Very nice! Now, I need a MiniDV cam, some tapes and... *goes shopping* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Check this shit out!This is _precisely_ what I was suggesting. Segment material? That looks damn cool. But, before we all throw our hats in the air and cheer, how many camera's support DV in these days? Anyone know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armadaender Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 There has got to be a bulk lot of those on ebay somewhere. Probably with free shipping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 You know whats very interesting about this discusion? I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that I was using windows Vista (I know, it's incredably sad), but I was doing some thing (God knows what), and windows asked me to insert a Tape in to my recorder and it started recording to tape. I then woke up and relised how briliant it would be if some one had come up with a method of streaming data to a VHS tape and store it (much in a similare way that alot of digital cameras store the video digitaly on a magnetic tape). I Googled and found it had alredy been done. I was so unhappy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChevronX Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 I think I might wait till Perpendicular drives become more better, YETABYTE DRIVES FTW! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeGrijze Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 MMmm I remember back in the day's i was useing my Sinclare (rubber) computer i used a betamax videorecorder als tapestreamer in place of the standard audio casset tapestreamers that where to slow. So I think it wil be verry sweet if we can use a VHS videorecorder as a tape streaming backup divice. Gerard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoyBoy Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 I cant imagine a worthwile amount of data being stored on a vhs tape, but hey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 4, 2006 Share Posted October 4, 2006 Around 2.7GB on a 160 minute VHS tape apparently PoyBoy ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted October 5, 2006 Author Share Posted October 5, 2006 That's the thing. At those sizes a DVD-R would be cheaper, faster, more versatile and probably more reliable. Putting 15 GB on a 5 dollar 60 minute MiniDV tape in LP (and keep in mind that there do exist longer tapes)... Now, that's an interesting proposition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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