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Digital Storage To Survive a 25-Year Dirt Nap?

Posted by timothy on from the lazarus-brand-only-goes-a-few-days dept.

AlHunt writes "I've been tasked with finding a way to bury digitally stored photographs in a small underground time capsule to be opened in 25 years. It looks like we'll be using a steel vessel, welded closed. I've thought of CDs, DVDs, a hard drive, or a thumb drive — but they all have drawbacks, not the least of which is outdated technology 25 years from now. Maybe I'll put a CD and a CD-ROM drive in the capsule and hope that the IDE interface is still around in 25 years? Ideas and feedback will be appreciated."

22 of 1,044 comments (clear)

  1. SATA, not IDE by Ubitsa_teh_1337 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Change up IDE for SATA and you might have a chance, since SATA is relatively new and SATA2 is backwards compatible with SATA1, etc.

    1. Re:SATA, not IDE by tekiegreg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd be curious to know whether or not a laptop could survive 25 years underground. I know he said welded shut, but rust and corrosion could still be issues.

      Maybe blueprints on how to build a computer to read said media should be included on paper? Then again even there, it's the same issue...

      Of course do take some comfort in that media useable in 1983 (25 years ago) can still be accessible with hardware available today in the second hand market, or even new hardware; certainly no new giant tape reels are being manufactured, but I do occasinally spot big tape reel reading equipment available on Ebay or some such place. I also recently spotted a USB drive for 5.25" disks which were around as far back as 1970, so take heart.

      --
      ...in bed
    2. Re:SATA, not IDE by hurfy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      hehe, 25 years ago we used a Wang 10MB removable platter for storage. Good luck with reading that. I have never seen the drive come up on eBay and the shipping alone would be several hundred plus adding a 20 amp circuit to plug it into :) Only a handful of working systems in US including mine.

      With the zillions of USB devices around they MAY make it that far. That Wang did make it 15+ years cause there were (relatively) alot of them installed. A SATA CD drive or HD might work. I also think the IDE drive is the least likely choice, it is only hanging on because of the CD/DVD drives :(

      I imagine any of them would be available second hand however due to sheer numbers now. HAving one out of thousands is a ways from finding one of 100's of millions in 25 years. Toss both a CD and thumbdrive in there and call it a day. Hmm, on second thought will the media itself be readable at that age? CDR probably won't make it. No idea on thumbdrive lifespan. Maybe a HD afterall, should be able to dig up (oops, bad pun) something to run it somewhere. Will a modern HD even store data that long?

    3. Re:SATA, not IDE by jedie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At that rate it would make more sense to just print the photos.

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    4. Re:SATA, not IDE by Rapidity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd be curious to know whether or not a laptop could survive 25 years underground. I know he said welded shut, but rust and corrosion could still be issues.

      Silica gel is often used in new furniture or goods that are going to be stored for a long time, it soaks up moisture and prevents anything nasty growing inside. I expect that could quite easily be used, a significant amount and keeping as much moisture from getting into the container before it's sealed would solve that issue.

      I'm more worried about knocks and magnets. If someone dug up a metal capsule in 25 years, would they know its contents were susceptible to shock or magnets?

      (Talk about off-topic for something titled "Re:SATA, not IDE" xD)

    5. Re:SATA, not IDE by NeverVotedBush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about just printing and storing the photographs? Use Giclee since it's archival and should easily last 100 years (it's pigment and not dye), and no computer is even needed to read out the data.

      Just a thought...

    6. Re:SATA, not IDE by cgenman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      25 years is not all that long. My relatives still have 25 year old computers, and I've seen much older still in production use at companies. The main difference is the lack of power and regular use. Could a battery or a process be used to intermittently power a device every 6 months for 25 years? The traditional solution to bit rot (either flash or otherwise) is to refresh with new energy and new copying.

      I assume that archival quality photo prints are too large for what you're attempting to store. What about writing each picture to a frame of a projection tape? Archival movie stock is pretty well understood at this point, and the size shouldn't be prohibitive.

      For that matter, pay IBM to host an encrypted file of the pictures for 25 years. On a large slab of granite chisel the URL, searchable file name, and decryption code.

      --
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  2. Print them by Asmor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, just print them. Unless we somehow evolve new sensory organs in the next 25 years, I suspect that photographs won't be rendered useless through obsolescence. They can always scan them into new digital files afterwards.

    1. Re:Print them by Asmor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, if data loss is an issue, then you shouldn't be burying it in the ground for 25 years. You should be keeping redundant backups and keeping the backups updated to the latest in archival technology every few years.

      If you just want to make a time capsule, and a relatively short-term one at that, then even a modest printing should be perfectly adequate.

      That said, I'd still recommend springing for some nice quality prints just because they are much nicer, and it'll be that much cooler when you open them.

      It probably is a wise idea to investigate the inks used, though. Photographs seem to last a while, but I don't know how well printer ink lasts and whether it fades with age.

    2. Re:Print them by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ummm... I'm sure that most of us who are 25 years old or older have pictures of themselves that are stored in bad conditions and still look decent.

      --
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  3. How about.... by uberhobo_one · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about a small digital picture frame? That way you could throw in your own flash drive, and the pictures would come with their own display medium. I'm sure they'll still have AA batteries 25 years from now.

    1. Re:How about.... by goto+begin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... I'm sure they'll still have AA batteries 25 years from now.

      Let's hope not?

  4. Why not... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    just bury the entire PC. Surely AC power will still be around in 25 years.

    1. Re:Why not... by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Won't work. The lead-free solder used in modern laptops will grow tin whiskers over that much time, and short out.

      The way I see it, there actually isn't any available technology which will reliably store digital photos for 25 years.

  5. Technology finds a way by kentrel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It really doesn't matter. If you use any popular media the technology will still be around to use it. We live in a big world, and there always geeks who love to collect stuff like that.

  6. Paper? by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it absolutely, positively has to survive 25 years, it might be worth the expense of getting the photos professionally printed on good quality paper and, if you're worried about the box leaking, laminated. Okay, it's a smartass answer, but those are photos you're going to store, and they're known to last more than 25 years easily.

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  7. Re:USB Stick by rho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Floppy drives, $9 from Newegg.

    You can still buy motherboards with serial and parallel ports, for God's sake.

    25 years isn't that far in the future.

    --
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  8. 5.25" optical media probably the best choice by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The 5.25" optical disc format seems to be the most likely to survive, given that the CD doesn't seem to be getting replaced in a physical format anytime soon, and the follow-on products (DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray) all use the same basic format and are backward-compatible due to the low cost of the lasers involved for the previous format(s). Given the preference in the mainstream to keep backward compatibility and the fact that even the fun new terabyte media are in a similar format, this is the best overall bet.

    --
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  9. Re:Multiple choice by lymond01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think of all those interfaces the most likely to still be used is Ethernet cabling. Get a NAS with ipv6 and dhcp enabled. Assuming we've adopted ipv6 in the next 25 years, this may be your best bet. Also consider wireless!

  10. Put it above ground by GiMP · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no good reason to put time-capsules underground besides some strange belief that it should be done that way. You're much better putting the contents above-ground inside of a wall, behind a plaque, etc. This way, it is much less likely for there to be water or other sorts of damage that plagues underground storage, you also have a smaller chance of it being lost or forgotten. If secured properly, there should be very minimal risk of tampering.

  11. What's with everyone picking ONE format? by spoco2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is everyone suggest A format?

    Why not store the data on a:
    * DVD
    * Pile of CDs
    * USB drive
    * SD card
    * xD card
    * Hard drive

    And a choice few in hard copy.

    Seriously... with the price of these things, and the timeframe, surely you can afford to store it on all of these things and put them all in? Plus it'll be fascinating in 25 years time to see how many are still readable... all? None? Some?

  12. Re:Rust prevention / Paper printouts by shadowmas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    -use something like paper disk [http://www.paperdisk.com/] to print the data on paper made with a plastic. or maybe laminate it ordinary paper.
    -Write the decoding algorithm using a very basic language like c and leave a printout of the code along with the encoded data. Even a hundred years into the future, people will be able to find C manuals. Even if no one uses it they will be able to either write a new C compiler or translate it to their language of choice.
    -Your biggest problem would probably be about the data itself. once the extract the bitstream how do they decode it to information. Hopefully people will still be able to decode jpegs, mp3s, and text documents. if not you will need to give them algorithms to those as well. (but for 25 years i think this should not be a problem)