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On 10/05/10 15:50, Ehren Benson wrote:
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Hi,

 

Just curious what others are doing now in the age of things being 100% digital, especially with videos and home movies etc.  Given that cameras in the past used tapes or other medium that was reasonably durable (VHS, MiniDV etc) which could be put in a fire safe or etc.  I just got a new HD video camera that either uses 16GB of internal memory or MS Pro or SDHC cards.  Trying to figure out what is th best way to make sure 20 years from now my videos are still safe!  Hard drives are unreliable, flash memory is a bit more reliable…yet very expensive…etc

 

Don’t know exactly given this new type of thing how people are planning on archiving important stuff!

 

Interested in your thoughts.  Thanks

 

Ehren J. Benson, MCSE

Windows Systems Administrator

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Michigan State University

1209 A Biomed Phys Sci

 

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517-884-5469

 


You raise an excellent question, which is not easily answerable.

What I'm doing--and I have a limited amount of 'super-critical' data--is
to store stuff on Taiyo-Yuden DVDs.  I use these specifically, because of
the chemistry they use for the dye, such that they ought to last a long
time, in the range of several decades. TY says more than 50, and even
their detractors say a "long time", so I think that's the longest term non
solid-state way to save data.  I'm not sure that disks won't last a long
time either.  I have some ST-225's that powered up and worked three
years ago, and they're *old*.  How today's hundred-gig disks will fare I
can't say.  I know I have at least 5 8G-or-smaller disks that still work
that are from 1993 to 1998 or so.

If worried about a DVD failing, don't roast one, roast five, or any
number.  It isn't hard to take N DVD drives and write software to
take N copies of a DVD and walk through them together, voting to
throw out any set of bad data.  Yes, there is still a chance that a set
of DVD's could have bad spots on all of them, but I don't think its
likely. Yeah, I know: backing up a 1T disk is much like backing up
a 30M IBM-AT with floppies.  Ugh!

Blu-Ray disks are attractive, but I don't think anyone has the
slightest idea how long they'll last.  Still, the multiple copy of DVD
backup sets should work there, too.  It they are good at long term
retention, 50G per disk would be nice.

If worried about DVD drives being available in the future, keep a set
of them boxed.   Keeping both IDE & SATA devices should last a while.
When SATA goes the way of the Dodo you'll have to get new DVD
drives (and I'll bet they will be read at least 15 years from now), or,
jump onto the new whateveritis that works for backups.

I have low density 8mm tapes, written in 1987 which still work. I know
friends have abandoned 4mm tapes and some of the DLT style,
because of problems.  Amazingly, really amazingly, some 9-track tapes
I helped create still work!  Finding 6250bpi drives is a problem though,
and a good knowledge of Sun hardware is a must.    ;-)

Having said all that, storing data on a system with a raid 1 system and
using it once every two weeks to a month seems a pretty good system.
By the time that the disks and computers are obsolete you can move
the data to another system.  Yes, this requires some effort, but 2T disks
hold a reasonable amount of data.

Sadly, mylar paper tape is not feasible for backups.

Even more wretched, paper is the longest term storage solution that
humanity has yet come up with.

--STeve Andre'