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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.
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.
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.
You work for Diebold?
For context, click Parent.
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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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+
At least until the FBI gives my servers back to me. They DO give them back, right?
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!
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
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'.
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.
53.3 years... because 640 months should be enough for anyone.
Earlier slashdot story regarding NIST study about potential lifespan of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
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.
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.
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.
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:)
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 is why I have always used plain text for the most part.
The files I wrote in the late '70s are still around today, and completely readable and editable.
Whatever editor I used (I used edlin for a very short time, and then WordPerfect and MS Word - as well as several no-name apps - on DOS machines - later I found vi and emacs under Unix - and have dabbled in OpenOffice and Abiword on my Linux systems) I made sure it had the option of saving the files as plain text - or I quickly stopped using it.
Nowadays I am using XML for anything significant (that I think I may want to publish - on the web or in print) - and plain text for everything else (and XML is really plain text from a software standpoint).
I don't have any software incompatibilities because I don't use proprietary formats to begin with.
Everyone doesn't think like that, however I am trying to educate as many as possible. Some yahoo sent me a Visio drawing the other day; I sent him a message saying, "save it as jpeg or png so I can read it". He did, and I was happy (not to mention I could easily incorporate his drawing in my own documentation/notes or translate it to some other format if needed).
This happens all the time, someone sends me a Microsoft Project file, or some other format that I do not have software for. I force them to change it to an open format - and after awhile they learn (at least to send me data that fits my open model - or that I can translate to something open). When their tools are dead and their files are useless, I will still be able to reference information that happened in the past.
So, your argument about software is only valid if you use proprietary file formats (only readable by one software application). I do not - and so your argument is not valid for me.
No one should use proprietary file formats for this reason - proprietary file formats hinder the migration of data from one technology to another (hardware or software).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain