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

Why depend on physical media

[PxM]

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.

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Wired article as proof

I Want A Known Quantity

[Anonymous Coward]

I want the MTTF to be a known quantity. If the CDs (soon to be DVDs) that I store my family pictures and videos on has limited lifetime, I'd like to know what it is so that I can refresh the media to avoid losing data.

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).

100+ years

[plopez]

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....

Longer than the copyright protection

[NetDanzr]

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.

Depends on which media! But no archiving

[redelm]

I expect expensive commercial movie DVDs to last my lifetime. I expect extortionately expensive music CDs to last my grandchildren's lifetime. I expect the backup CDs I burn to last 2 backup cycles, say 3 months.

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.

Tiered costs?

[startleman]

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.

A short History of written media

[jimbro2k]

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.

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

[metlin]

I agree.

For me, I treat digital media like traditional media - particularly books.

While the digital media maybe flimsy, there is no reasonable reason why the information therein should _not_ survive for more than 40 years.

At the very least, one can be sure that it would have historical significance. And I'm fairly certain that I would be alive 40+ years from now, which would merit the necessity for me having the media, or atleast the information therein. While the information may eventually become irrelevant, it would at the very least have posterity value.

Digital information is no different from a library of books - it's just stored digitally. I do expect my books to last as long as possible (hell, books have lasted centuries, if not more). Then why should it be any different for other media?

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

[cayenne8]

"The difference is that with books, all you will need to read them in 40 years is your mental ability to read, your natural vision, and maybe a set of bifocals....In 40 years try to find a way to read your DVD full of MSAccess95 DBs, Word 95 docs, etc."

I second that. Even on a more basic note...even if you had the ability to read the content (word 95, msaccess...etc.)..what if you don't have a DVD player to read from? Sound hard to believe? Not really.

One example I recently read about...during the compilation of the Led Zeppelin DVD and CD sets..they were going through the archives, and found much of the sound of the concerts they were trying to save and reformat, was on old 2" analog tape of some kind. As I understand the story, they had methods of baking the tapes to get them unstuck and playable for transfer, but, they ran into the problem of trying to find a tape player for the media!! They had to look worldwide and had a very difficult time finding one that was functional and high enough in fidelity.

And c'mon...this for concerts recorded only 30+ years ago in the 70's.

Stuff recorded on todays DVD standard...well, could possibly be hard in 40 years to find a player backwards compatible enough to read today's media....