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How Long Do You Want Digital Media To Last?
spamfiltertest writes "CNET asks 'Would you like your digital-storage media to last 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, 35 years or 40 years?' If you're an organization or government agency, the U.S. government and an optical-disc industry group would like you to answer that question in a quick survey. I would think that we would like our data to last forever, but maybe it's just me."
Would you like your digital-storage media to last 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, 35 years or 40 years?
If you're an organization or government agency, the U.S. government and an optical-disc industry group would like you to answer that question in a quick survey.
I work in the records department of a two year tech college. We use document imaging hardware and software to store student files on WORM optical media permanently and then we destroy the physical paper files over time.
We expect that our digital media will far outlast what we have on other permanent storage mediums, such as microfiche, which go back to 1972. If the "antiquated" microfiche can hold up that long why not our records stored on the digital media?
We realize that no storage method is 100% foolproof (i.e. you can misfile microfiche, lose physical files, misplace pages, etc) but we have put a lot of faith into the setup we currently have. If time has a negative effect on both the originals and backups we could find ourselves reverting to tried and true methods used in years past.
It's mildly humorous to me that long term data integrity (i.e. "forever") is never mentioned when companies present you with all the benefits of a digital setup. The benefits of the system are great (such as easy access to student information at various sites without any reproduction necessary, security features, etc) but will our microfiche outlast our digital media? I may never know but currently, based on recent discussions about the degradation of digital media over time, it appears that it may.
I feel sorry for the poor bastards that would have to go back to storing and reproducing everything to and from microfiche if and when we find out that digital media might not have the necessary longevity we require.
I would think that we would like our data to last forever, but maybe it's just me.
My company recently started deleting our email after 90 days. One of the reasons I heard was to protect us in lawsuits.
Any other questions?
Yeah, I'd like my digital media to last forever.
While they're at it, can they make my car run forever? I also want to stay young forever, if that's not too much trouble.
Make it last as long as possible. Any media set to self destruct after a set date is no use to anyone. Make the best you can and keep inproving it.
I like muppets.
Sometimes I think it would be great to have optical storage last forever. But then I think about my grandchildren going through my CDs years from now and stumbling on all my porn. Hmm... not good.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Ya I really want my grandkids finding the 60 year old pr0n pix/vidz of grandma the day before we go into the home.
i want it locked up in some archaic and obsolete drm so that i can't get at it anyway.
sum.zero
So that the media will destruct at the moment I die. This will save my heirs from a lot of unnecessary work and embarrasment.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Or until my music goes out of style?
...are they asking how long I want the rights to use it? Or how long the file should retain its integrity? Or ... something else?
I guess the intent of the question is irrelevent. In all those cases, if I paid for it I expect it to last at least as long as I do.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
In 25 - 30 years, the data on that disk probably won't be readable by the current software available. Just like that 8-track that you will never find a car to use in. To keep your data current you'd have to convert and rearchieve every so many years.
I think 25 years is a good, round figure.
As long as my addiction to pr0n...
I don't want any data storage that lasts past the statute of limitations. Of course, at that point, it probably doesn't matter anymore.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
If it lasts forever, we still have the option of destroying the media if we're only supposed to keep it for a finite amount of time.
What we really need is fireproof paper.
5 minutes. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Wouldn't it be better to switch to a RAID style hard drive system? As long as the data can be transferred quickly (no CD swapping) I don't need the hardware to last for decades if I can move the data over to another system without a problem before it fails. The whole point of digital data is so that it can be replicated and transfered rather than for the hardware to last forever. In the future, we could just have multiple personal petabyte data archives in various places that store all of our personal information where the physical system isn't such a big deal because bandwith makes it easy to move the data to my PDA or to my bank's digital data vault.
--
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
The length of time isn't terribly important, as long as it doesn't make the cost of new media too high (e.g. DVDs aren't too expensive, so if I have to reburn them every five years or move to the next media format at that point, that is a good use of money and time).
The company I work for uses USGS data going back to about 1900. It is interesting to think that data collected 100+ years ago may outlive data currently being gathered....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It must at least last until you are sure you don't need the data anymore.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
At least until the FBI gives my servers back to me. They DO give them back, right?
It seems rather pathetic that modern, high-tech digital media have a far shorter lifetime than good old paper. There are many files (e.g. historical data, classics of music and literature) that we want to preserve indefinitely. With the current technology, these could easily be lost for all time.
Forever doesn't mean much to me because I don't plan on living forever--and everything after that I don't really care about :P
:D
So, if my digital media lasts around 80 or so years--awesome...I'll be buried with it... Hey maybe I'll be able to use them wherever it is I'll be going--if anywhere. Think they have fibre for everyone?
i want it to last "to infinity and beyond"
If you're a business that specializes in the massive backup or translation of data from one medium to another, you probably want media to last a few years at most. That way, organizations are constantly coming to them with stores of data that they need re-recorded.
Pretty much the only way to make your media last forever is to have it stored in a solid state (like being etched into the surface of a DVD) and then sealed and stored in a moistureless, airless, lightless temperature controlled environment. But with all the talk about self-destructing DVDs and CDs that the recording industries are trying to push, I don't think even that's possible.
CONVERT ALL YOUR DATA INTO BINARY AND THEN LASER ETCH IT INTO GLASS! THEN SANDWICH IT BETWEEN TWO OTHER LAYERS OF GLASS AND HIDE IT ON A MOUNTAINTOP! YOU MUST SAVE YOUR PR0N COLLECTION FOR ALIENS TO DISCOVER AFTER WE'VE BLOWN OURSELVES TO ATOMS!!
This rant was brought to you by the Reynolds Society for Tin Foil Hats... Remember, only Reynolds Wrap brand tin foil can protect you from the strongest of the alien mind-control rays!
I want all of my data to die with me. (Except my will (living or otherwise). That should stay around a bit longer. Maybe on a floppy.) That way, I will be remembered for what I was eating and wearing when I fell over dead rather than all the inflammatory shit I've written over the years.
see, for example, the dead sea scrolls...2,000 years and still read-accessible.
While data is obviously stored on media, talking about the lifetime of data is not the same as talking about the lifetime of media. So, the original poster's "forever" comment is unrelated to the survey he links to.
If you have media that you know won't last over 30 years, just copy it onto new media at the 20-25 year point. In most cases, that's not that big of a deal. Besides, by the time that 20-25 year mark rolls around, it's very likely that you'd want to convert to a faster "online" media anyway, like holographic storage.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
In my opinion, digital media like CDs should last AT LEAST a lifetime if not more. So, my feeling is that 100-150 yrs is a reasonable expectation. I mean I've got old reel-to-reel tape recordings (eg. Queen Elizabeth's coronation that was taped off the radio) from around 50 years ago.
The ironic thing is that I was going to "update" it by copying them to CD, but the would actually have a better chance of lasting in there current form than as a CD with it's average 10yr lifespan.
I would think that we would like our data to last forever, but maybe it's just me.
That's not the point of TFA at all. They're talking about finding ways to basically note the shelf life of the media itself, i.e. the quality of the product.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
What does the pRon watchdog group that manages double oriface insertions have to do with archival media? Or are they just concerned with the preservations of my copy of Orgazmo?
I'm not sure it's realistic. One nice thing about digital storage is you can copy it to new media with no loss at all. A book, or painting, or photograph, might last longer (in theory). But when it does wear out it can't be magically duplicated like bits can.
So if you want stuff to last forever, each generation of people needs to convert the old stuff into a new format. But if you are only doing this once a generation, it's not that big of a deal. You could even make it a family tradition, the passing of the old to the new. Assuming of course that you actually care about keeping something 'forever'.
"Very soon, but not less that a week."
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Oops, I got the wrong URL in that link. This is what I meant.
I'd like the media to last at least a few years after the copyright protection expires. Only that way we can legally guarantee that many great works don't disappear alltogether, as the copyright owners keep them in storage, and their media become unusable before enthusiasts can legally get and preserve them for the future. So currently, I'm looking for a roughly 100 years media lifetime.
To have all of my digital pictures. 100 years would be nice. Just set a reasonable price and I'll buy it.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
2 Late it's already /.ted
53.3 years... because 640 months should be enough for anyone.
I don't know if it's related to the idea that teenagers think they are immortal, but "forever" is a long time. How much of that information will have any value in 40 years?
3.5" floppies took about 2 decades to become obsolete, do they seriously expect this new standard to last 40 years without the need/request to transfer everything to another format?
I'd like my media to last longer than it'll take the web site to get slashdotted...whoops, too late.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
Real colleges post their records to teh intarweb and let a million identity scammers do the backup for them!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I was going to pontificate about usefulness of data and a bunch of crap like that until I realized how simple the answer to this question really is:
42
Did Orgazmo come to mind when anybody else saw their domain name ?
How many /.ers have cds from 25 years ago? That's what I thought. They didn't HAVE CD's 25 years ago (Not like we do today, at any rate)
In 25 years, this will be a moot point. We'll have some insanely big storage medium. Right now, our current technology just has to hold the data for about 5-10 more years, then we can all switch over to the new system.
Case in point: All the old floppies we used to run stuff on are obselete now. I'm sure back then, the people running them hoped that the floppies would last "forever". Who's running 5 1/4 floppies now? They've all switched over.
And now I've RTFA, it seems that this is a point they make in the survey. Just something to keep in mind.
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
Earlier slashdot story regarding NIST study about potential lifespan of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
Until the next trial
an optical-disk industry group ::snicker::
you mean the DVD Association... also known as the DVDA... heehee
I will not "archive" materials. If it's important, it stays online, migrated & backed-up. If it's no longer important -- delete. Online (HD) isn't that expensive. Archives can get lost or corrupted. Or readers may no longer be available.
Is there a way for AC's to opt out of the "Take this servey" portion of /.? Cool, it's news but if those types of postings are ok around here now then does that mean that I can use /. to distribute my efforts to collect marketing data? (Not that I handle marketing but that seems like what is underway here.)
Oh, the group's membership is listed on the left here: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwog/
I think that the story makes a good point, namely that some Data / Format migration is inevitible.
Therefore, optical storage producers would be smart to offer several "levels" of guaranteed life, and you could purchase based on how long you think you need you need your data to live. e.g. price per unit... 5 years: 1 dollar, 10 years: $1.50, 20 years: $2.00 etc.
I'll go with the "forever" option, or at least a long long time. Yes, older technologies can be migrated to newer technologies, but that is irrelevent. There is no way today we can make the decision about what will be of interest 1000 years from now. The only way to get the data of today to 1000 years from now is for the storage medium to last 1000 years.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
The preservation of our data is the understory of what it is to be human. No preservation = no humanity. All we are is just "dust in the wind".
... is already available. You only need two components:
1. A punch card reader; and
2. Punch cards made out of that plastic that lasts for a length of time statistically indistinguishable from forever.
Presto! Permanent media.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
In 100 years, the only archival footage available to historians will be pirated copies of films. We all know Hollywood was already letting films rot in the vaults before they got all paranoid about the scourage of perfect digital copies.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
DoubleVaginalDoubleAnal.org?
CDs last 3-5 years
Floppies last 4-5 years
The problem isn't storage, it's READING the data stored in an old format. We have many miles of census data stored on punch cards and paper tapes, but don't have the machines to read them anymore - at least not in quantity.
So making it last isn't important - I can still play my records, but it's hard to find needles to play them.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Stone - lasts about a million years. Clay - 100 years - (10,000 years if burned!!) Parchment/Vellum - 1000 years unless eaten by bugs. Papyrus/Paper - 500 years, MUCH longer if kept dry. Acidic Paper - 100 years or less. Notice the trend - it is NOT toward longer-lived media. Volitility seems to trump Archivability every time, and possibly for different reasons in each age.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
Strange, my tiny PentiumMMX 32MB RAM server is still running, ignoring "the nasty reboot bug" which has been in there for 10 years...
takis@eros:~$ uptime
20:55:12 up 64 days, 36 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
takis@eros:~$ uname -a
Linux eros 2.6.9-ac12-eros #2 Thu Dec 9 01:49:39 CET 2004 i586 unknown
And our student server seems to be running fine, ignoring that "reboot bug":
-(~)> uptime
8:56pm up 74 days, 5:07, 2 users, load average: 1.12, 0.70, 0.66
-(~)> uname -a
Linux lumumba 2.4.29-rc1 #1 Sat Jan 15 14:32:12 CET 2005 i686 unknown
Sure, I should have ignored your flamebait...
... had better be readable in 25 years by the software that exists then. If for no other reason, because so much of UNIX is based on text files.
Now, the text files of 25 years from now may well not use 8-bit characters (think Unicode here). So current text files may in fact not be directly readable by the current software in 25 years (though I would bet that there will be some software in 25 years that still has an "import old 8-bit files" option, again on UNIX/Linux if nowhere else).
HTML will almost certainly still be readable. Doc format? Forget it.
Hmm, I think I see a pattern here. Open formats survive longer than closed ones.
Fast, cheap, good. Pick any two.
--
make install -not war
this text is not here.
sum.zero
One of these days we would still like to know who on earth killed JFK, you know.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
Why would the porn industry be interested in conducting a survey of the lifetime of digital media?
I say porn industry because its DVDA.org... Double vag... come on, you all watch southpark.
-- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
I think another important issue is the amount of waste generated by throw-away CDs and DVDs. How long do you want the average mix-CD made by Joe Teenager to last? He probably won't be using that thing longer than a year. Biodegradable media may serve the purpose for 90% of optical storage, and more permanent metal/plastic discs could be used for archiving pictures, documents, and the like. Answering the data-life question is important for determining how long biodegradable media should last. Plus, the life of the disc doesn't determine the life of the data. If you have something really important, you can probably spare the time once every 20-25 years to copy it to a new medium before the old one becomes unusable. I'm sure most of us wish that those AOL CDs would biodegrade before they ever made it to our mailboxes and front doors.
i'll take cheap and good.
sum.zero
When is the last time you saw a 5.25" disk drive? How easy is it to find a Jaz drive these days? WORM reader? Something that will read your old files stored on analog cassette tape? I could go on naming defunct storage media solutions for half the day.
The only real solution for long-term storage is to keep the files "live" on a system someplace. Under and other arrangement even if the *media* the bits are stored on doesn't go bad, there's a pretty good chance that the hardware to read that media will go the way of the dodo when you're not looking.
So, once again, good planning and systems administration proves to be the answer. Set up a reliable system in a RAID mirroring setup and cut backups on a regular basis.
This became a major concern to me once I switched over to all digital photography. I have a Linux fileserver running a RAID-1 setup that serves up all my important files. Once a month, I cut three sets of backups to DVD -- one gets stuck a CD tower in my apartment, one gets taken to work and the other one goes to a storage area I have (I figure if anything ever happens to take out all three at once, losing my data will be the least of my worries). I'm up to four DVD's to back up all my data now, thanks mostly to digital photos.
It's important to be able to rely on your media over a fairly reasonable term, but in any long-term situation live filesystems are the only way to fly.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
last thousands of years. Paper can last thousands of years. Film? al least a hundred years. Vinyl, so far about 80 or 90 years. It seems that every new medium we come up with has a shorter lifespan than the previous. Doesn't seem right, does it? Digital should last at least as long as vinyl. CD's made of glass and gold are the only materials that can provide suitable durability. Good luck finding a player a thousand years later. Actually the constant changes in technology make digital archiving impractical. You have to re-archive averything to keep up with the tech. You only need daylight to read stone and paper, and you can play your vinyl on a potter's wheel if you have to. Neither requires electricity. That by itself gives it a huge advantage over digital.
What?
Given the current half life of media readers and writers, you can expect to migrate your data every five years or so. When 5 1/4 disks became an endangered species, I moved what was important to 3 1/2 disks. When 3 1/2 drives start to become scarse, the data on 3 1/2 disks that I still care about will be to moved to whatever technology seems likely to hang around the longest at the time.
Last night I went to a museum and saw a great deal of ancient Egyptian art with lots of heiroglyphs that was about 3500 years old. I'd like our storage media to last at least that long.
so when it starts to degrade, someone can make another copy if necessary.
More music, fewer hits
Everything is going to be on digital media soon.
Think how the last few thousand years of our collective knowledge would look if the media it was recored on only lasted 40 years.
Sure, the data people want to be preserved will be copied, spread around, and duplicated - but what about the data people in power DON'T want to be around.
You can bury a book, in a container, before it get's burned, and hundreds of years later someone can unearth it. Humanity needs to be able to do the same thing with digital media.
Time travel is possible. We are quickly heading for 1984.
My pr0n only needs to last about... say... 3 minutes?
Who out there still has hundreds of floppy disks filled with porn downloaded from Usenet that are completely frickin' worthless now?
I was going to say 'until Disney lets copyright expire' but I guess forever will suffice.
LIES, these screenshots have been tampered with; i have proof
no really... at this time in life I have never had any data that I would want to keep for more than a decade. There are several reasons:
Within a decade there will be new technology out that will require me to transfer everything anyways. Example given: all my old VHS tapes met the scrapheap as soon as I got a DVD-burner.
Within a decade I most likely will not be listening to the same music... Example given: The 80s. or most any decade. For golden oldies you still prefer, see the above point.
Any thing I wrote a decade ago is either published, or crap, or both. Anything to be kept for emotional purposes, see point one.
And finally, any program I liked a deacade ago, most likely wont play on my new computer. If it does, I can always keep a copy in whatever format is popular at the time.
Well, maybe there is one more reason...
If ANYTHING is THAT important to me after more than a decade, for gods sake, smack me, I'm living in the past. For any exceptions to this, again... see exampe one about transfer.
So who the friggin heck needs this anyways?
I have a bunch of 5.1/4 floppys that work just fine, but seriously, what use are they to me?
(I'll answer that one myself... Decoration and shooting targets.)
I would have thought the first comment would be something about the movie "Orgazmo" considering the website was DVDA.org
If you want to maintain a text, store it digitally and redundantly. You can keep a text for thousands of years, assuming people continue to maintain redundant copies, purely because digital files can be copied with no degradation. Paper will fade, and manual copying of text is prone to human error. As long as you keep sufficiently redundant digital copies, you'll be fine.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Digital media is replacing, and thus should match the longevity of, non-digital media, such as paper and photographs. It would be insane not to aim for the longest term storage possible. Lost protocols may be deduced, but lost media cannot be recovered.
My motorbike travels in Chile.
The article talks about getting media labeled with lifespans. In the case of optical media, the burning process contributes to the longevity just as much as the physical disc itself. I'd imagine that moving a laptop while its internal drive is burning could be problematic and lead to media that won't last as long. Or improper laser calibration.
Second, how do the manufacturers know how long a disc will last? They do accelerated aging tests by exposing discs to extreme conditions, but are those results good estimates? Maybe, but we'll never find out until decades down the line when we can finally verify the validity of such claims empirically.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=1216161
I would like them to last 'till the point I forget about them I just hope sysadmins and so don't agree :-)
Tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all folks!
Longer than "forever"? How do you suggest media manufacturers pull off such a thing?
40+ Years:
Artistic creations (photographs, movies, etc) which cannot be replaced are now stored almost exclusively in digital form. Having media decay with time creates an ongoing job of having to continuously re-copy data. Should you miss any, it's gone forever. In my estimation, this is even more important for families that want to maintain an historical record of their lives for posterity. I've recently come across writings and records of my ancestors dating back several hundred years, and it's a wonderful and fascinating thing. I would like to make sure that my great-great-great-grandchildren have something similar available to them. Outside of that, there is interest in preserving artifacts of our culture for future generations as well. As we discover that modern film, prints, magnetic and optical media have a much shorter lifespan than good old-fashioned paper (and even modern paper tends to contain acids, etc., which shorten its lifespan) and carving stuff into rock, one must wonder if our present world will vanish into the mists of time - to be outlived, as it were, by some of the ancient civilizations that by historic and technological accident chose to use superior media.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Follow the chain of technology upwards. The data on my key DOS-era QIC-80 tapes was burned to CD-R. Recently the data on my key CD-Rs was burned to a DVD-R. I also use an old machine as a home server and have copies of this data there.
So for me I think of it this way. My parents and grand parents have only a few pics of the gererations that came before. Some really old picutres we have came from around 1910. The pictures are for the most part not in very good share. I see these pictures of these people who were loved deeply by the people I love and I wish I could know them better.
Now I have a nice digital camera(Canon Digital Rebel) that was expensive, but I got it for a good reason. I am about to get married and do the whole family thing. I hope someday that a great-grand kids over maybe even a further down the line will be able to look at all the pictures I will take and maybe understand a little better where they came from, what the world was like, and how pretty there great grandma was:)
I believe he's actually referring to a Windows 98 bug that has been fixed for over 5 years now.
4 0/18540.html
Oddly searching for "windows 98 reboot bug" brought up way too many irrelevant references.. who would have guessed that windows, reboot, and bug would be on the same page?
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/185
I had this discussion awhile back with a coworker. Our hypothetical solution was aluminum punch cards. Not so great for data density but it has a few positive features.
1. long life. Hopefully more durable than paper. Aluminum also shouldn't corrode to much.
2. reader simplicty. The reader should fairly simple to make. A scanner and some black paper should get it into the computer then it's just a matter of oftware. Other methods should be easy also.
3.If you're straight forward with the data it should be fairly easy for archeologists to figure out years from now.
Making it line up neatly with copyright? Life of the owner, plus 75 years? That way, when copyright expires, the media will just self-destruct, and there will be nothing to fall back into the public domain. Of course, as we simply keep extending copyright, it'll mean that media will never self-destruct.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
To me the real answer to this question of how long our media should last is "Long enough for us to move it to the next most convenient and efficient format". The storage we have now is impressive but any forward-thinking person would reasonably assume that it will be outdone and become obsolete relatively soon. Of course most organizations will choose not to ride the wave of new technology for cost reasons, so that has to be factored in as well.
Local fires won't damage the offsite backups ("my bank's digital data vault") if the bank has the backup scattered all around the world.
Please use your real name and email address! If we want the industry types to take this survey seriously, don't give them an excuse to write off the results as "ballot box stuffing." If your email address is noone@nowhere.com, I apologize for all the spam I have given you over the years, but now is the time to tell the truth.
I would like to last 70 years (as in doesn't degrade). I.e. I don't want it to become cloudy, split into pieces, or fade as long as I store it properly. I would like to to be readable for at least that long as well. (as in new standards have to be backwards compatible that long). i.e. I put a dvd into a dvd player in 30 years, I expect it to play my old 9.4gig dvds as well as the 80 terrabyte dvd's I'll be using then.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Pixel perfect until the feds come knock on the door.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"I don't mean to sound gay or anything, but I think unicorns kick ass."
I'm currently doing backups to tape, in the hope that it takes more to destroy the entire tape than a cd, and also that tape lasts longer. I'm wondering how this stands up today? Is tape lasting significantly longer than disk? Than Optical mediums?
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
For example, I have an old 20mb 5.25" drive with a logical edge connector. I don't think any modern system uses that kind of connector anymore, and though I have IDE controller cards that have it, they're all ISA cards. When was the last time you saw an ISA slot on a P4/AMD64 motherboard?
I mean, is anyone nowadays looking at cavewoman pr0n? That's how we'll look to humans 50,000 years from now.
I didn't easily see any privacy statement on what they would do with my name/email, how well they would protect it, why they needed it.
The form won't accept if the fields are blank. Of course, I could enter bogus data, but there should be a clear policy statement.
I'd say my biggest problem with the whole "migrate your data to another medium later" mentality is all the information that people don't consider to be of enough importance to migrate (even though it could be very important centuries later). After all, look at the Exeter book. The thing's almost a thousand years old, was used as a cutting board, had various things spilled on it, has pages missing, etc. and is one of the most important records of Anglo-Saxon literature in existence (even though some people clearly didn't care what happened to it at the time).
Furthermore, the thing can still be read. If you even give a CD a decent scratch, some drives are going to cry uncle and refuse to read it. The fact is that digital media can't take very much abuse at all and remain useful. Paper and other such media can (some more than others, of course), which is why all my important stuff exists in hard copy somewhere.
If I'm passing things on to my kids and eventually their kids, I don't want the media to wear out in my own lifetime, let alone theirs. I'm talking about family photos/videos/personal recordings, etc. not my MP3 collection. I understand that technologies become obsolete, but the continual migration to a new format (or else lose it all!) is no excuse for the old technology to forget all of your data if you don't migrate in time.
I still have records from 40+ years ago that play just fine -- if newer technologies really are better, then they would last even longer. It's a scam to help ensure the mass migration to new technologies that the storage media expire in such a short time span as they do now.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
If you really want longevity you should take your microfiche and cut the words into sheets of gold.
looters. That is why we only have stone statues from early times. The bronze ones were melted for other purposes (cannons anyone?)
and they havn't been kept in safe pristiene storage conditions. Dust, on the floor, yet I can still read the disks without any problems. They're 15+ years old. All the so called superior 3.5's though are like trying lifting a fingerprint from a weak print. Lots of premature dead and dieing cdrs. Don't get me started on tapes. So what'd they do right with 1.2 MB floppies? Why are they so durable?
Where is the CowboyNeal years option you insensitive clods?!
Emacs has been around for the last 30 years, I'm sure it'll be around in the next 30 as well :)
...standard copyrights allow. Before too much longer, that should be effectively forever...
Average user:
Storage time desired (in years) = 74 - your current age
(slightly longer for women, and varies depending on country, how much you smoke, and several other parameters).
Optimistic user:
Storage time desired (in years) = 90 - your current age
Extreme user:
Storage time desired (in years) = 122 - your current age
(standard set by Jeanne-Louise Calment, 1875-1997)
When holographic media comes to market, a disk the size of a CD/DVD will have the capacity to hold the text of every book ever written
Free MacMini
But I really doubt that's gonna happen anytime soon. Some new format will probably come out every once and awhile and then the old format will have to be rearchived. What would the ideal format look like?
You have been warned.
The Book of Kells is illuminated onto parchment and it's more than 1200 years old, and I can testify from having seen it first-hand, it looks practically brand new. The colors are strikingly vivid and the text incredibly crisp. I think that it is a testament to the extent that the longevity of a given medium can be extended, given proper or excellent care.
As an MFA candidate, I am qualified to make the above aesthetic observations in the stated objective manner.
stuff |
Since glass is a liquid, I wonder if etched glass would just re-flow over centuries erasing the data.
it really should last for as long as the format and storage technology is able to last.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
BSA survey: "How often would you like to re-license software? A. Every year. B. Every 11 months. C. Every 10 months."
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
to install my replacement-by-RMA backup hard drive and complete the new backup.
Unfortunately, I seem to have discovered this week that some media did not last quite that long.
While we should probably be able to choose to delete it, data, in any form, should have the potential to last indefinitely, regardless of the media. The most important consideration is that data should be stored such that it can be readily accessed and easily read. If encryption or DRM is to be used to protect the data, then it should exist only in the data, not in the media.
Consider media like cave paintings, stone tablets, scrolls, books, etc. The data stored is readily accessible. (Whether we can interpret it is another issue, but access is indeterred.)
The point is to separate the data from the media such that one is not dependent on the other. Even if the media starts to wear out, the data could be able to be transferred to the newest, best media.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
i've seen the metal from an old nail
fuse into a piece of 300 year old stone.
matter eventually leaches together.
if you can guarantee a backup regime that will
copy your data to a medium every 10-20 years
(if your hardware & software format is even
still used) -- then you may be able to keep it.
but if you just put it on a magnetic medium
and expect it to last without periodic recopying --
the smaller and finer you pack the bits,
the less long they'll last.
j.
What is unimportant to you may be incredibly important for future historians. There is no way of gauging the importance of even the least document produced in any time, especially considering the transience of most forms of storage.
Cheap media - 10 years of _guaranteed_ reliability (storage industry radically changes every 10 years)
Expensive media - forever (for governments, libraries, archives, motion picture industry, etc.)
While an individual recording on a digital medium might not last for all that long, with digital media you can make a perfect replica, provided you do it before it has degraded beyond what the error correction can handle
Instead of expecting a given CD to last forever, maybe it's better to do long-term rewrite old data onto the then-best form of digital storage every 20 years, or so. That would also have the advantage of saving physical space as bit density increases over time. You could conceivable have a special kind of cartridge that holds hundreds of disks that can be accessed automatically (kind of like the tape libraries used for large backups) to make the process less labor intensive
Professional archivists tend to recommend that data be turned over onto new media every 5 years regardless of how well it's weathering the years.
But the truth is that, paradoxically, the most critical data tends to be the least likely to be refreshed, because access to it is typically quite limited.
Our own department of defense doesn't know where it stashed all of it's nuclear materials over the years. Why? because they recorded it on a magnetic tape, put the tape in a vault, and had someone stand in front of the vault with a gun for 40 years, and now the tape has turned to goo, and in other cases the tape seems readable but there is no technology available to read it.
We should always strive for and recommend rigorous archival policies, but we should also strive for media that can possibly withstand the ages should some knucklehead put it in a concrete box or just forget about it completely for a few decades instead.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
That's a myth, BTW. Glass is an amorphous solid and does not flow slowly over time. Old windows that look wavy looked that way when they were new.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
For the record, the idea that glass flows is an urban
legend
...what is the product of information x reliable storage time doing.
One of the things that created the Y2K problem was the unexpected longevity of code. No one coding in the 80's seriously believed that their code would still be used as the basis for released applications in the late '90's.
On the basis of things like this we should expect digital content to remain of interest considerably longer than we might currently expect. There are other reasons to believe this: I own a number of books that are more than 40 years old, and some of them are not only useful but still quite current (Heitler's Quantum Theory of Radiation, for example.) And I'm reading a novel at the moment that was printed over 100 years ago.
The nice thing about paper is that if you leave it alone under reasonable conditions it persists pretty well. If digital media can't do the same, then there is a significant hidden cost involved in using them. For large organizations this cost is just one component of the usual process of archival data management, but for the average person it is something new.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Brewster Kahle talked about some related matters in his recent Library of Congress talk. C-SPAN re-aired his LoC talk last night and it's on their website in some proprietary format like RealVideo or Windows Media (unfortunately).
Some of what I've gleaned from his talk and related discussions on archive.org: no matter what media you purchase you will want backups so keep multiple copies in different locations under different management strategies, make sure one uses free software file formats (even hiring programmers to write free software to create such formats when needed is cheaper than relying on a proprietor to do this work) so prefer FLAC to Shorten (for example), and keep one's budget on the same order of magnitude for multiple neighboring cycles (if you say a cycle between making whole-archive copies is 15 years, think about 30 or 45 years down the road) so that one can afford to buy a set of storage devices that hold significantly more than what one has now (hard drives, for instance, hold a lot more data now than they did 15 years ago).
His plans involve storing digital copies of all published work (scanning and OCRing all books, storing copies of all published CDs, digitizing all LP records, etc.) and when he laid out the numbers it seemed quite approachable when one considers the budget of the Library of Congress.
Digital Citizen
Change is good. Change is life.
My stuff will last forever because it can be format-shifted. This is essentially why we do not want copy protection.
Dvorak on Doomtech
Yes! Someone would be interested in company X's records! A lot of good history is done with business records: look at Cronan's Nature's Metropolis about the history of Chicago. And let me bring it back to the digital world: I talked to Pop Top software while I was working on my thesis about how computer games present history, and they used old records/manifests from railroad companies in the 19th and 20th century to make Railroad Tycoon!
After that, I don't care because I'll be dead... :P
I have an old book that was printed about 1895. I bought a 35mm camera in 1953 and the slides from that first roll are still the same as when I first took them. (Kodak film speed was ISA-10)
My main concern is that a fire or water damage from a tornado or hurricane might destroy the data, not having the archives fail. I still expect my digital pictures to last as long as my slides and color negatives and prints last.
I realise the word "forever" is redundant now but we must look at the resilience of existing media. How long does vinal last? How about tape? I wont use paper or books or even wax tablets as examples, but if something can be broken down into 1's and 0's why not look at the integrity of another media instead of CD's and DVD's or tape which have proven to fail us.
A chip that was "written" 50 years ago still holds its integrity. Why not improve the integrity of flash memory? Or if that fails, use some ingenuity. There are other media that can hold data, or virtual media. To paraphrase Linus "real men upload their data to an ftp server and have other people mirror it"
just my 2c, which probably wont be read now anyway
My blank DVDR's packaging says it lasts for over a 100 years. That's good enough for me.
Meh.
Hmmm... according to 1984, one of the principles of Ingsoc is "he who controls the past, controls the future." If records are less than persistant, and whoever is in charge at the time that info is copied to new media doesn't have the integrity to accurately copy all of the bits (perhaps a neo-Ministry of Truth?), hmmm... Short lived media seems to fit Ingsoc very well.
For the average user, 15 years is overkill for digital backups. How badly do you miss your floppy disks?
/. subscribers have pulled out any backups over 5 years old.
Everyone here has lamented the loss of a crashed harddrive and that gziped email archive you had, but we're talking about archival stuff -- when was the last time you actually looked at your college notebook carefully stashed away in the garage, or that 10-yo gzipped email archive? When was the last time you cared what was on that 9-track tape other than wondering if anyone had a machine that could possibly read it?
My claim is that for the vast majority of computer users, if you haven't looked at the data in 15 years, the chances are extremely slim you care to retain it. I certainly believe that in the unlikely case you really believe you might want that information (like old business memos and things), there does need to be some medium out there that can store it longer. It's just that most people won't need such archives.
I'd even claim that just 5 years would be enough for the majority of computer users, although the number of people satisfied by 5-yo guaranteed media will be significantly lower than 15-yo guaranteed media. It doesn't sound good on paper, but in reality, I seriously doubt that over half the
I would like my personal data to last the span of my lifetime then disappear at the same moment I leave this life. Any other archival data meant to survive for the edification of humankind should last forever. 'nuff said.
How much money would you like me to give you?
10 dollars, 20 dollars or 100 dollars?
Shoot their data into the vastness of space with a laser beam, directing it at some planet that is in the same colour spectrum as the laser, so that it bounces back into their receiver/repeater antenna, which then amplifies the signal and shoots it into the space again.
That's the only way.
You can't handle the truth.
Comparing to audio recordings, I have 78 RPM records from parents and grandparents, over 100 years old, and they still play perfectly. Players are getting rare, but still around and technologically simple enough I could build one with the tools in my garage.
I have 4 Track tapes (NOT 8-Track. Anyone remember 4-tracks?) from the 1960's that might still be playable if I could find a player.
I have 8-Tracks that are still playable, and my mother still has an old player that works. Don't know where to find another.
I have lots of reel-to-reel tapes. Haven't seen a R-to-R system for a while, but bet they're still around and the tapes are still playable, although getting pretty rare. Again they are technologically simple enough I could build one.
I have 100's of cassettes, and a good Denon deck to play them on. The ones from the early 1970's are getting a little iffy though. Don't see any good quality decks available for purchase today, but a few crappy ones are still available.
I have dozens of DAT tapes, and only one working deck left. Haven't seen another DAT in years. Good luck building one of those in a garage.
I have CD's from the 90's that no longer play. I have created hundreds of CD-R to transfer my 78's, cassettes, and so on to. But many of the ones I created five years ago are unreadable.
In short, 78's and even LPs are nearly as good as they ever were, Reel-to-reel still sort of viable, but every other recording I obtained since 1970 or so is in imminent danger of becoming lost.
I am converting them to digital (PCM, not MP3) and storing on multiple working computers, on the theory that I can always copy them in the future to the next computer I buy.
Lesson: Modern media are more convenient, but not reliable.
If I wanted to archive my audio collection for a new generation, I would place it on a good quality reel-to-reel and store it carefully with the best deck I could buy. And keep "live" digital copies on working computers.
This situation really is unacceptable. The CD/DVD form factor has enough critical mass that it should stay around for a very long time. We need optical media that will last for centuries if cared for properly, and we need to place a priority on backwards compatability for each follow-on generation of equipment. Have the ability to record in the latest blue-ray technology, or whatever, but read old CD-R's from the past.
I buy high-end CDRs and DVDRs... the packaging often says "Guaranteed 100+ year archival quality". They advertize technologies such as Super-AZO, Gold, etc... So, is this false advertizing? Will my CDR's and DVD's really last at least my lifetime (assuming I store them in dark temperature controlled places)?
Meh.
Something folks haven't considered yet is that digital media is easily migrated. This can not be said for stone carvings, paper based writings, or clay tablets. In fact, digital media (in the form of digital cameras and scanners) allow us to preserve stone carvings, paper based writings and clay tablets - which are mostly 'one of a kind' in their native antiquated formats.
In my own experience I have files that have existed on magnetic tape at one point in their life. These same files were migrated to floppy disk (various formats), and then further migrated to hard disk, to CD Rom, and finally to solid state memory devices (usb flash drive).
So the concept of 'lifespan' of the data is effectively 'forever'. However, the degradation of its current storage medium could corrupt the data before it has been migrated. I have had data that was corrupted - some recoverable and some irrecoverable from magnetic floppy drive media after 10 years. On the other hand, I have CDROM media that has yet to show signs of any degradation after 15 years.
The key to successfully managing data that needs to have long life-spans is to determine the average lifespan of the medium and plan for moving the data to new media when the time comes. I have done this successfully for personal writings and other information. For large organizations this can be a daunting task - but is well worth the effort when considering the value of the data.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
There is strong evidence that the Minoan clay tablets represent the temporary, "scratch-pad" records of that civilization. No other written records have been found (I'm not counting the Phaistos disk). This raises the obvious speculation that they may have put their permanent records on papyrus, which was available to them as an import item. The clay tablets survived thanks to burning, but the papyrus (if it was used) may have gone up in smoke.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
How about and media sold with copyrighted content on it should be legally required to last as long as the copyright?
It's the hardware and software. I do some work on digital preservation, and what I have found is people in the audience have data stored on everything from the newest blue stuff from Sony (PDD) and Plasmon (UDO) back at least as far as 8" floppy disks and old Winchester platters. They have all the media, and it looks like it's OK, but they can't really tell. Why? THEY HAVE NO FUNCTIONING READERS!
And even if ya went on eBay and found a functioning 1541 or Datassette recorder for your C-64, good luck finding software that can read Xywrite, Geoworks, Wordstar, Nota Bene, etc. etc. etc. from 20 or more years ago. When I filled out the 2-question survey, I commented that 10-20 years is sufficient GIVEN that the hardware won't be available longer than that, and the software certainly won't be. In a couple more years, after all our files are belong to XML, then maybe. But until we solve the software/file format issues, even the hardware is not the main bottleneck. As Dr. Jeff Rothenburg said, "Digital documents last forever - or five years, whichever comes first."
Put it on the Web. It'll end up cached and mirrored all over the place and it'll never go away.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Why don't we just store schematics of what ever medium being used to access the media on paper? That way if it doesn't exist anymore we can just build another.
How much has storage media changed in the past 20 years? How much do you think it is going to change in the next 20 years? I know my 5-1/4" disks and tapes still hold the data they had on them, but am I still able to access it? Do I even want to be able to access old tapes? Storage media doesn't need to last forever because we are always coming up with new, better methods for digital storage.
Out with the old, in with the new.
HeadlessZeke
It's easy enough to read data from 40 to 50 year old, 1/2" magnetic tape reels. Why should today's "newer, improved" technology be less useful for long term storage?
...I'd like to hear why you think X years is better than, say X+10 years.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
How about longer than the ridiculous f*cking length of the copyright.
~AC..K~
A lot of industrial hardware is just in the last year or two switching to USB from serial connections.
that's voodoo you're speaking!
But seriously, what happens when, in 20 years time, a way to create collisions in the signature hash you are using is discovered?
damn! you got slapped down on that one!
You're learn not to stick your neck out so nekkid on here in the future.
A better post would have been:
"I've heard glass is a liquid. I wonder if etched glass would just re-flow over centuries erasing the data."
Never state as fact things you don't know.
5.25 inch to 3.5 inch
3.5 inch to Tape/HDD
Tape/HDD to CD
CD to DVD
DVD to Blue Ray?
etc...
This is how I undertake it and have never had a problem with achieve retrieval.
I don't think it's unrealistic to expect a few hundred years on average.
Those of you who have not read Spider Robinson's (free) short story Melancholy Elephants should.
One thing to consider is the life of the technology. DAT's, CD's, DVD, and on. Technology advances. I think media should last probably around twice as long as it's in vogue. It's easy enough to create backups of your backups.
At some point it's going to be difficult to find readers for older media. For instance anyone know where you could get a Hawk or CMD drive? I imagine you can probably still get 5 1/4" inch floppy drives, though I've not see any advertised in any mainstream store.
So I think a media's lifetime only needs to be longer than it is popular. Maybe add 50% to that time or possibly double it.
--
itrict maptro drutock podrecko
I wish my old drunken college newsgroup postings (with my real name on them) would just DIE! Damn you, google groups!
Heh. Thanks for the advice COWARD.
Like most people I thought I did know. So I was wrong. Big Deal.
That's why I'm planning to engrave all the important stuff onto stone tablets
--me and ozymandius, we go way back.
Just an idea ... If archiving for long periods of time, store at least a few, if not 10 - 15, brand new readers (from different production runs) with the media. (If using CD-Rs, then store a few CD-ROMs with the collection of CD-Rs, for example) That way you'll be sure to have technology to read your data if it is not transferred to new technology.
All societies that have stumbled upon something they really, really want to tell you carve it into stone. It's one of the few mediums that can survive serious climactic upheaval (not to mention a tremendously severe slashdotting)
Either that or they do something like transcribe it into the DNA sequence of the humble fruit fly in such a way that the answer will be obvious to any other beings on their wavelength. Sorry but I can't tell you anything more about th... (bzzzttt... signal lost)
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
do you think any of us will recognise/like the Internet after a few more years of its ongoing corporate/government evolution?
:(
People will probably be classified as subversives/placed on no fly lists/ deported/harassed and discriminated against because of what they have written in the past.
You may not have access to those 'archives' but I know who will
[queue creepy paranoia inducing music]
Glass is a fluid. The plates will melt together and you'll have lost your data.
In much of the UK's Local Government the introduction of "document management systems" is posing a great threat to future accessabilty of information and records, for, while incoming snail mail is scanned and stored on WORM media, the majority of records and documents are now computer generated, mainly by MS Word.
.... and Legal often gets asked to amend docs.
These Word documents are being stored on DVDs and CDs that are claimed to have a long storage life. Unfortunately neither MS nor the system suppliers will offer any guarantees that the information on them can be read beyond the current version of MS Office. MS depends on people continually buying new versions and so has no incentive to keep old formats.
Already we have Councils where the rich departments (like Legal) have Office XP while the poor departments (roads, parks) are still on Office 97. Legal can read Parks docs but not the other way round
When you suggest the use of an open standard like XML they say "but MS Office is a de-facto standard!". So was WordPerfect once...
Paul
www.opencouncil.org
Open
Imagine if Sokrates had been asked whether he wanted his lectures transcribed on media lasting 10, 20, 30 or 40 years...
The digital media that we need and don't have should last at least as long as paper (modern paper, not the old acidic variety). While standards for reading data will certainly change, the data itself can be lost if nobody imports it to the new standard, and even if there's going to be people converting old discs to new standards full-time (Library of Congress, anyone?), data will be lost if the media degrades. Whether it's a video game or a digital encyclopedia, or a family photo album, there's no reason we can't get everything, given that storage in the future will be so far beyond that which we have today that available space will be no issue. All these things are part of our culture, and should be preserved for posterity. Will people need the game Asteroids in the future? Not any more than we need Monopoly today. Will they need private family photo albums? Not any more than we need old portrait photos from the late 19th century. Will they need an old outdated digital encyclopedia? Not any more than we need the Dead Sea Scrolls. It all comes down to preserving our culture. Media should be, for all intents and purposes, immune to degradation over time. Protected and undisturbed (properly stored) it should be able to last for centuries, even millennia. We can't expect these things to survive fires, prolonged exposure to sunlight, or moisture, but it's not unreasonable to hope for something that lasts as long as the Dead Sea Scrolls did.
we're really comparing apples and oranges here. on one side, 8-track and cassette tapes are analog media to to be able to play them requires special hardware for each of them. however, data stored on optical discs are digital formats, and to be able to play something digital is basically installing a software decoder, which probably is a chipset firmware upgradable.
that's why nowadays, you have dvd players that act as cd players, and pretty soon we'll have hdvd-players which will act simultaneously as a dvd and a cd player.
as long as the industry is supporting some sorta of optical disc format, we'll be able to retrieve information off optical discs back to the beginning of CDs.
but as someone earlier mention formats like trying to read word95 or access95 documents and not being able to, finding a convertor or reader for these types of files will be many many times easier than finding an old equipment to read off from analog media.
HD Trailers
Under the right conditions they will burn, and over time (much longer than you'll live) they will slowly decay.
In fact, even the wikipedia mentions this,
"Thermodynamic stability: At surface air pressure (one atmosphere), diamonds are not as stable as graphite...However, owing to a very large kinetic energy barrier, diamonds are metastable; they will not decay into graphite under normal conditions."
So buy your fiancee a graphite ring.
(I seem to remember that every element lighter than iron is at a higher energy state than iron, and every element heavier is also at a higher energy state, so all elements tend to decay towards iron. So really, only iron is forever.)
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If paper does, in fact, last longer than the digital medium, then it is obvious: store the data on paper.
As noted in other comments, the longevity of new media forms has actually been decreasing with each new technology.
But we won't need our media to last any longer than it takes The Singularity to arrive.
I'm a bit of a midnight oil fan and have been since I was at Uni. so Imagine my suprise when JJJ re-release a concert televised back in '85 - Oils on the Water. The concert was recorded in 1" broadcast video, 4:3 & digital stereo tapes for the Goat Island Sydney Harbour concert. On the same release is a Super 16 mm film and analog multitrack recordings of the Capitol Theatre concerts back in '82.
Exhumation, resurrection and final product
I guess some of the key lessons to learn can be read in the detailed discussion of how they re-mastered the images & sound to produce a DVD and CD of the original concerts. Some of the key takeways are:
The reason I've bothered to highlight this restoration is so you can see what happens with information stored on old media over period 20 years. In both cases, Goat Island & The Capital, the original data had been collected but only the prior data had been kept in a professional archival environment.
Is your data as future proof ?
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
...it is kinda like forging an old document. You would need an authentic blank disk from the era (or the manufacturer's disc type would give you away), recorded on authentic hardware (16x Z-CLV burning? burn-proof? Those didn't exist in year 199X"), worse yet if the original drive exist, do a drift comparison (probably as unique as a gun signature), and maybe you can somehow measure the age of the tracks themselves (do the edges of the pits change at all during the lifespan?).
;)
It is not that it can't be done, it just ups the scale by several orders of magnitude. Same with printed money. They *can* be forged, it is just a question of how accurate you can be (or need to be). For many cases, WORM integrity is sufficient, RAID integrity is not. If neither is, you better have signed statements in triplicate
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except, of course, for the fact that your family life definetly won't be improved with your fixation on your mum and kids generally don't enjoy being chased with a camera all the time. Even if it's called "REBEL".
Get a life, shag well and stop your fucking moronic "past was better" attitude. Typically you DON'T start a family for a chance of photo-ops.
Some people have already approached the problem of making some data readable after a very long period of time - The Roseta Project. While their medium isn't digital, it is extremely durable and technology independent. It only takes a conscious observer to be able to (gradually) read it. Great idea.
What about Decentralized (P2P) Replication of data? Perhaps the sheer number of nodes on the internet today combined can replicate all data to the point that a file's SHA-1 or whatever can be used to retrieve that file at any point in the future. And, 160 bits isn't hard to physically write out to another medium, either.
The answer to every question is Decentralized P2P. Or at least I think it is.
http://pixelcort.com/
This is so wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin.
Glass, while you can technically call it a "fluid", is just as stable as just about any other fixed mineral that you can come up with, including granite or even sheets of metal.
The problem with glass is that it breaks rather than bends... again a problem with many other kinds of rocks.
So while over millions of years you might have glass "ooze" over each other, there are many other issues that make glass a poor archival medium well before that becomes an issue, including fagility of the stuff, having it scratched up (even if on a diamond substrate), or acids used for the etching process coming in contact with the glass. Water will eventually erode just about anything, and can do some incredible damage to glass in particular.
^_^ One occasionally sees "news stories" about people being able to read CDs with the naked eye, but all of them seem to someone modifying the story about this guy.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
No media lasts forever, so what really matters when archiving data is that you know how long it will last. That way you can copy the data to new media (and possibly a new format) before the media goes bad. My father used a DECmate II word processor throughout the 1980's. After he died in 1992, I spent considerable time figuring out how to covert those files into MS Word format. About a year ago, I went to read of his documents again and found that Word wouldn't convert the doc (I didn't have the Word-for-DOS converter installed). As a result, I spent an evening converting all the files again, this time to Word 2000 format. And of course, along the way the data has gone from 5.25" floppy disk, to MFM and RLL hard disks, to SCSI and now IDE as I've done hardware upgrades. I'd be in real trouble if those Word for DOS files had been on an RLL hard drive in the closet instead of being in the /archive directory of my home computer.
SO the lesson is that both the hardware and software technology changes rapidly. My advice is to copy the data and convert it to a modern format every 5-10 years. Always keep the original format too, just in case you turn out to have a picture of the Grassy Knoll or something equally valuable.
Come on people! Just make two copies of each of your CDs. If one of the two copies stop working, just make a second copy from the one that's still working. I don't think there's any media that lasts longer than digital media if you do this. This way you don't have to care about the period of time you make backups. If you care about loosing the two copies at the same time (is it really possible?), just make three!
Until recently, every hard drive that I bought had enough capacity to store the entire content of all my previous hard drives, with room to spare. So for the past umpteen years, more or less everything I have has been rolled over onto the newest drive.
In a pinch, most software is disposable. All of my self-authored documents could probably fit in a few (100) MB. Add in my digital photos, and it's maybe 10 GB. Add the latest version of application software that can read this store of data, and we're still looking at 15 GB. Seems like my rolling copy method of archival has a few years of life left in it.
Yes, but one would think a 160-bit key would be good enough for most things. I doubt data corruption wouldn't get caught using this.
As for the popularity issue, that is a problem that will need to be addressed. Structured overlays may be the trick here, but time will ultamitely tell.
http://pixelcort.com/