[hobbes_fan]

I'm really not sold on the usability of RAID0 at all. It's not a backup solution, bt no RAID is, bt other versions of RAID at least offer fault tolerance. Speed? two raptors @ 10,000rpm in RAID0 barely (as in 1/2 a second) faster than a non raided raptor. I'd say the same results would be replicated in your typical 5400/7200rpm drives. Considering how fidgety and temperamental RAID0 is paricularly in your home setup using software as opposed to HArdware raid.

But to redirect this thread, as well the intermediate capacity optical media Dual layer DVD's have started dropping in price it's down by 1/4 from January, I bought a 10 pack of TDK's for $35 it's now $22.00. It's more like half if I decide to buy bulk packs of 100. And DL is nearly almost in all instances the highest grade of media available as opposed to the random nature of standard dvd's

So while BD is expensive, it's appearance has at least put downward pressure on the older formats. 9gb is still very high capacity considering. Using the highest res anime I have gundam00 - that's a full 26 episode season of mkv's in h264 1280x720. It's becoming a more viable storage solution. these releases are uncommon though at this stage, but if we use the standard 700x400 size that's almost 52 episodes. As a 2-3 year backup solution its very viable IMO. I mean if my usage is anything indicative of the average user here my photos and docs will fill 1 DL dvd, My music will cover maybe 2 dl dvd's, my home movies around 3 or 4 if I compress them to h264 and upscale them to 1280x720 with AC3 sound which is what I'm doing atm. My anime collection and NBA game collection is by far the highest at close to 1tb, and those barring the old anime from the 70's early 80's are easily dl, so they're not all crucial unreplaceable data. Of my 1tb in use I'd say maybe 300gb requires a backup.

I am interested to see what will happen to the HDDVD only titles and when (if) they can be transferred to BD media