I just got an IM from a friend who says he is itching for Blueray to become affordable so he can backup all his media and files which are currently spread out over about 40 DVD's. This has prompted me to put the whole large capacity optical media juggernaut into perspective.

Both offer high capacity on a single disc, but as it stands right now, only people with more dollars than sense can actually afford either. Higher quality movies are no doubt be uber-sweet, (when I say quality I am of course referring to the high definition image), so there is no denying the advantage there. But what about data storage? It's stops sounding so good now.

HD-DVD stores 15gb and Blueray has a capacity of around 50gb. That might sound like a lot, but why spend $1000+ on a burner for your PC (and that's without blank media which is about $40 per disc) when you can get a 500gb drive (10 times the capacity of a dual layer Blueray disc) for less than $150? You wouldn't.

Why an external hard drive is better.

• Hard drives have super fast access and write speeds (hundreds of times faster than any optical media).
• You can manage the files (delete, move etc...)
• They are significantly cheaper per megabyte than Blueray or HD-DVD.
• You can plug them into anyone's computer with a USB port and start using it, whereas any Blueray or HD-DVD media will require a compatible optical drive.
• You won't damage it by simply handling it roughly - optical media is prone to scratching.

So if you are holding out so you can backup more data that your typical 4.75gb DVD does, don't wait. It will be several years before Blueray and HD-DVD optical media is a cheap as black CD's and DVD's are now, and by that time hard drives will be about $50 for a terabyte or two.