Best replacement for DVDs?

Question

I'm trying to de-clutter my living space. I have a bunch of DVDs - about half are movies, and half are other data, usually with two copies of each if it's important - I was thinking about transferring it all to USB thumb drives, since they are pretty cheap now. Or, I could use external hard drives, but that seems less cost effective for a given capacity for some reason. What's the difference in terms of reliability/failure rate? Another option I considered, is to get a HDD docking station, and use internal type drives instead, since they are cheaper, and are the same thing, minus the case...I think?

Update:

I should add that there would be no constant re-writing/deleting. Also, I'm happy to treat movies and other dtata differently. For example, have movies on flash drives for portability, but use something more robust for other data which will never need to move more than a few feet. (And then, only once a drive is full)

Anonymous · Answer

Don't download any...........

Just Wondering0001 · Answer

Hi. Best option is harddrives, either external or internal.

You can use the internal drives through a USB adapter, but when You buy an external harddrive it's the same thing but qwrapped in a dust & water-protected case already.

You also have the added benefit of an included power supply with the external drives if You get a full size external, otherwise there are more portable drives that are basically made with a laptop drive instead of a desktop drive, but they're powered by the USB port.

I have a BluRay burner & a few external harddrives as well as about 30 internale from old systems purchases & virus-cleaned acquisitiions, & I have a PVR that uses a non-standard recording format onto USB drives that is taking up multiple terabytes of space, requiring conversions to use on My othe rdevices, I'm going to  bite the $140(US) bullet shortly & get a 6Tb external harddrive that I can split into 3x 2Tb partitons for My UEFI-capable OS to read properly & for sorting purposes between actual everyday files (like multiple linux OS disc-burning files, Windows installation disc ISO files, A huge set of abandonware discs downloaded & PVR cr*p waiting to be converted.

G'Luck!!!

? · Answer

Bad idea, the best, is to copy to a blank DVD, or BLU-Ray.

daniel g · Answer

I have my whole world backed up on 'two' 3Tb external drives. Includes like 300 movies and 10,000 songs.
I learned the hard way, never keep all your eggs in one basket. Backup, and often.
The drives plug into anything USB even my droid tablet. (also backed up)

Bill-M · Answer

The best place to place movies is on a Solid State External Hard Drive.
If you place Movies OVER 4GB on a USB Stick you will have to reformat the USB from FAT 32 to exFat or NTFS.

Anonymous · Answer

Purchased movies are usually encrypted and copying them requires software. The disks are illegal to sell as they are the license. Depending upon the amount of storage, external HDDs are cheaper.
Solid state drives are reliable, but cheap thumb drives fail more often.
How much capacity of storage is the question to look at cost differences.
What type of pc?
USA, or other country?
Cheapest Solid State drive, that is probably not as reliable as others, starts at $82 per terabyte
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PX2KKHM
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#sort=ppgb
cheap 4tb hdd at $70
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E262AHO
I think the cheapest thumb drives may get to $0.10 per GB
1TB = 1000GB roughly
A USB external HDD has a case and USB-SATA card.
Normally, best bet is HDD for cost, but on small storage, cost difference is small

? · Answer

From personal experience, external hard drives have a high failure rate in terms of not reading after too many writes. If you drop it then it’s probably not going to work. 
Flash drives are slow. They’re not that cheap the bigger the size. A 128 gb is more than twice the size of a 64 gb one.

One possibility is to transfer them to Blu-ray Disc. A double layer holds 50 gb so it’ll replace about 10 DVDs.

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Best replacement for DVDs?

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