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 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.

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...

[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....