The plan was to burn DVDs to watch and then keep a backup on a HD for when the DVDs get flaky. The HD would be external and only be connected when I wanted to clear off my regular hard disk.
A few percent of my saved movies become unreadable after a while and a few more got scratched. There has been no pattern with media brand, just a few that randomly go bad after a few months. Some of those I lost were good ones and I don't feel like paying for them again. Since HD long term storage is highly reliable I felt it was better than burning 2 sets of the DVD, though that is an option.
Eventually I will get off my lazy butt and put together a multimedia server but for now I'm looking cheap and fast. I can do a 1T external for $120. Also, I do not like wasting the electricity an always on server consumes. Color me Green.
Mainly I was looking for feed back on the reliability of BIG, non-redundant hard drives. I have never had an issue with a drive under 160gig failing.