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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.
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.
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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.
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+
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.
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.
The whole point of storing data on WORM media is to prove that the data remained unaltered during storage.
You want to be able to have an audit trail that shows any modifications (timestamps included) to the records. You also want to make sure that images that were stored were unaltered ("photoshopped"). You want to make sure that an exact copy of the information was stored and remains exact for the life of the media.
If it's not stored on write once media then that can't be guaranteed.
Earlier slashdot story regarding NIST study about potential lifespan of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
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.
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.