Sony and Panasonic announce the Archival Disc format

Re:Sony and Panasonic announce the Archival Disc format by beagle3 on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @12:12AM (#7377378)

> do yourself a service and switch either to RDX or to tape. Storing basic HDD on shelves is a recipe for data loss.

What makes RDX (basically, an HDD encapsulated in a rubber cartridge) more reliable than e.g. an off-the-shelf rubber-USB-enclosed HDD? It's not like cartridge makers are making hard drives themselves - they source them from the same manufacturers as everyone else.

All the complaints about HDDs for backup/archive apply to RDX, as far as I can tell. And at $100-$150/TB (and I can't even find cartridges bigger than 1.5TB for sale anywhere), it seems to combine with the worst price as well.

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Re:Sony and Panasonic announce the Archival Disc format by wazoox on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @08:30AM (#7378812)

At least the RDX connector is made to withstand several thousand insertions (USB clearly can't). I suppose that the makers take some precaution to give some shelf durability to the drives within, too, but that's just a guess.

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Re:Sony and Panasonic announce the Archival Disc format by beagle3 on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @10:10AM (#7379255)

I am unconvinced.

If your archival media is going through thousands of insertions, then it's not archival - it's the most inefficient swap device ever.

But I've connected/disconnected my laptop's USB mouse and keyboard a couple of thousands of time (several times a day over the last few years) and neither connector nor socket seem to be suffering.

Furthermore, most of my cold store drives are of the self-powered USB 5400 RPM variety (getting a decent 30-40MB/sec on USB3) - if something breaks, I replace the $1 cable that connects drive to computer.

Seriously, RDX seems like an awful choice - does someone here actually know differently?

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Re:Sony and Panasonic announce the Archival Disc format by hga on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @03:19PM (#7381527)

Yeah, it's not at all clear to me that USB connectors aren't worth "thousands" of insertion/removal cycles. They look very well thought out, plenty of contact area. Looks like it depends on the thickness of the gold contacts, per this supplier: http://www.globalconnectortechnology.com/usb-connectors/

  USB2.0 Full Size: 1,500 mating cycles, gold flash plating.
  USB2.0 Mini: 5,000 mating cycles, 15µ” gold plating. 
  USB2.0 Micro: 10,000 mating cycles, 30µ” gold plating.
  USB3.0 Full Size: 5,000 mating cycles, 30µ” gold plating.
  USB 3.0 Micro: 10,000 mating cycles, 30µ” gold plating.

With an added comment:

Why Micro types offer better durability?

Accomplished by moving leaf-spring from the PCB receptacle to plug, the most-stressed part is now on the cable side of the connection.

Inexpensive cable bears most wear instead of the µUSB device.

Plus as you note, it's easy to make it a cheap replaceable part. Use a USB extension cable on the computer side and you won't be wearing that out (I've done that trick in times past).

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