All - Now we have 128GB write-once blu-ray discs and burners in the market (BDXL, BD-R 3.0) I am thinking this could be a good long term archive solution for the ReadyNAS.
But I've search the forum and elsewhere and not seen anyone reporting success archiving content from a ReadyNAS to USB 3.0 attached blu-ray burner.
Anyone care to share their experience?
What drivers on the ReadyNAS required to do the burning? Any limitations? Is Shell Access required or is there a plug-in for a user friendly UI? What burner hardware worked for you?
I haven't tried this myself. Let's wait to hear some suggestions or feedback from other community members and see if they have success using a Blu-Ray Burner on the NAS to backup data. As far as I know,the USB ports only supports UPS and External USB storage devices.
I understand the implications of Shell Access (if you check my earlier posts to the forum before it moved to this new wizzy platform)...
I imagine this will be an occasional thing - once every 8-18 minths perhaps - and as with all Shell Access would ensure full backup off the NAS before doing it. As an example when I get a new laptop, once I've switched over I don't need old timemachine files "on-line" on the NAS - but would like to keep a copy - and those files can get bigger than removeable media other than BluRay.
How could I learn how to do Archive to USB Attached Blu-Ray Burner?
I haven't tried this myself but I think it should be possible. Though you may have to build kernel modules etc. using the GPL. It may be quite difficult even if it is possible.
I haven't tried this myself but I think it should be possible. Though you may have to build kernel modules etc. using the GPL. It may be quite difficult even if it is possible.
I think you would be better off connecting the optical drive to a PC. It's likely slow enough that copying the files over the network has no penalty, and you'll get better status information when things go wrong with the copying.
Problem is on Windows all the "copy" utilities tend to have a hard time with some aspects of fully / reliably traversing a file system (things like crazy windows path length limits in some applications have bitten me more times than I care to imagine).
Its what led me to ask the question if I could avoid the copy and simply burn from the trusted ReadyNAS itself. I know you guys know your file systems and copying "just works" 🙂
Any suggestions of windows or mac (I can go this route too - but less familiar) tools that can be used to comprehensively copy a section of a mounted file system (from the ReadyNAS) to a local directly that the blu-ray burner software will copy/burn to the disk?
I'd start with simply mapping the share (or folder within a share) to a PC drive letter. That should keep the path names within the normal Windows limit (e.g., the network part of the path doesn't come into play).
If you have issues with buffer underrun on the bluray, you could make a local copy with robocopy, richcopy, or teracopy. But I think that buffer underrun isn't a problem with blueray or dvd media, so my guess is that the burner software would handle that.
