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."

Comments

I'll take the survey in a bit, but...

[garcia]

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.

Re:I'll take the survey in a bit, but...

[blueg3]

Why would you assume digital media is necessarily going to last longer than older media?

The trend is not for newer storage methods to outlast older ones by any stretch of the imagination.

Stone inscriptions, stored reasonably well, will last quite a long time. Books printed with appropriate inks and stored well will also last ages. Comparing to those, "antiquated" media like microfiche will be useless much earlier.

From what I recall, we use newer media forms not because they last longer but because they're more convenient. You can store information much more densely on a DVD than you can on microfiche, which is in turn a more dense storage form than paper, which was a big improvement over marble and clay tablets.

If you really want longevity you should take your microfiche and cut the words into sheets of gold.

forever, but...

[sum.zero]

i want it locked up in some archaic and obsolete drm so that i can't get at it anyway.

sum.zero

does it matter?

[kevinx]

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.

Data != Media

[TheFlyingGoat]

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.