Tape cost = HDD cost.... how about that....

[EditingFX]

Was looking to pick up some external USB HDD's to have available for client "run n' gun" handoff media & saw that 120GB ext usb drives are going for $80 @ Fry's.

Got to thinking, it might be close now, so.....

BetaSP 30's are $10 each, so DV50 @ 4 hours (106GB) would fit on a 120GB drive for $80, versus 8 SP tapes at $80.

(To be fair, DV50 being the equivalent of DBeta, that would double the tape cost to $160.)

 

[David Jimerson]

We knew it was going to happen -- the cost of tapeless dropping below the cost of tape.

You don't get quite 120 gigs of free space on a 120 GB drive, though.

 

[Mister Big]

HDDs take up much less space than stacks of tapes.

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

HDDs take up much less space than stacks of tapes.

Just make sure you have at least two of each. I backup my footage in raid 1 paired disks.