LG N4B1 Super Multi NAS with built-in Blu-ray rewriter

[WoodsDweller]

Brief review over at CDFreaks.

 

* Built in Blu-ray Reader and Recorder

* Very well laid out and easy to follow instruction

* Stylish looks and solid build quality

* Cross platform compatibility- Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems

* iTunes Streaming support

* Synchronizes with Mobile USB devices

* Supports up to Four 2TB hard drives

* e-SATA Support

* Extremely quiet device operation

* Stellar support from LG

* No Wireless LAN support

 

$800 without drives. The idea of providing a Blu-Ray burner in a NAS is effing brilliant.

 

Chris: you should contact LG and see if you can get a review unit!!!

 

EDIT: newegg has them in stock, so not vaporware. RAID 0, 1, 5, 1+0, JBOD. 3 x USB2.0. Network Print Server Support. Disc Copy into NAS, Disc Burning from NAS. Port RJ-45 1 x 10/100/1000M.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Interesting concept. How do you envision most people using this?

 

[WoodsDweller]

You already know about NAS for music storage.

 

RAID is not a backup. Anything stored on a RAID device still needs to be backed up. Blu-Ray, when used as a data storage (not video) medium holds 25 GB per layer. I don't know how many layers this thing supports, I've seen two-layer (50 GB) media, so there must be burners.

 

At the trade show where BD was first introduced to the public, somebody (I think it was Toshiba) showed a demo of 8 layer burnable BD media (200 GB), but that hasn't hit the market, yet.

 

For the foreseeable future, BD is going to be the backup medium of choice for multimedia data, simply because of capacity. OK, most people (including me) are currently using hard drives for that, but they are not really a good archival storage medium for, say, over a 10 year period.

 

Music data has the great advantage that once it is written, it doesn't change. Once you get the bulk of your collection backed up, you can move the BD discs to your safe-deposit box, and burn a new one once per year or so.

 

I rip to WAV, which has averaged a half-gig per audio disc. Single layer BD would save 50 audio discs per BD disc. Dual-layer, available today, would be 100:1. Eight-layer would be 400:1. If you are using FLAC as your archive data format, you would get another 30% on top of that. How big is your music collection? Somebody posted in the last few days that he has 2000 discs to rip. Would he be interested in protecting both his physical music collection plus his time investment in ripping by archiving on 40 BD discs? Or 20? Or, someday, 5?!?

 

As to other things, I am intrigued by the "iTunes streaming support" item. I'm not using iTunes because it doesn't run on Linux, but you are iTunes-based, so this might be of interest to you.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

OK that's kind of what I had in mind but I wanted your thoughts as well. I like the idea of backing up to BD and storing in a safe place. Do you know how long current BD storage media last and how expensive the discs are?

 

[WoodsDweller]

I don't know how long they last, perhaps nobody does at this point.

 

Some prices: 10-pack of single-layer for $65; Dual-layer single-pack for $22.

 

Media, cents per GB, (approximate audio discs per backup disc, WAV format):

 

* BD dual-layer 44 cents per GB (100:1)

* BD single-layer 26 cents per GB (50:1)

* DVD dual-layer 17 cents per GB (17:1)

* DVD single-layer 6 cents per GB (9:1)

 

I, personally, want to wait for a 4-layer burner/media technology before I take the plunge. It's not just the media cost, but how many discs you have to handle to get the job done.

 

EDIT: newegg just sent me their daily specials, which include a 1.5 TB Seagate HDD for $120. I'll just add that to the list for comparison.

 

* HDD 1.5 TB 8 cents per GB (3000:1)