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SanDisk WORM SD Card Can Store Data For 100 Years
CWmike writes "SanDisk has announced a 1GB Secure Digital card that can store data for 100 years, but can be written on only once. The WORM (write once, read many) card is 'tamper-proof' and data cannot be altered or deleted, SanDisk said in a statement. The card is designed for long-time preservation of crucial data like legal documents, medical files and forensic evidence, SanDisk said. SanDisk determined the media's 100-year data-retention lifespan based on internal tests conducted at normal room temperatures. The company said it is shipping the media in volume to the Japanese police force to archive images as an alternative to film. The company is working with a number of consumer electronics companies, including camera vendors, to support the media."
.. then they started to rot at 3-5 years, in my experience..
Post this again in 100 years, until then, it's just more bullshit marketing.
Until you realize that the last reader for it will be extinct in 20.
I'll buy one so I can put it in my time capsule along with my 8" floppy and punch cards.
card is 'tamper proof' and data cannot be altered or deleted, SanDisk said in a statement
To what value of highly funded and motivated attacker? They left that part out of the marketing hyperbole.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Good for 100 years or your first fire, flood, or other natural disaster that destroys the physical media.
Also, even if these do last for 100 years, it's a certainty that there won't be any hardware left that's capable of reading SD cards. Even if there's some piece of hardware in a museum, it won't be able to interface with existing technology. Given the rapid pace of the tech industry, anything beyond 25 years is just fodder for marketing.
Extrapolation is a dangerous and deceptive marketing strategy. If it is supposed to last 100 years, they should test it that long.
Nobody is going to sue in 100 years anyway...
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So they state 100 years, based on tests at room temperature. Can we assume that the media will always be stored at room temperature in 100 year period? My experience generally shows this is wishful thinking, because air conditioning breaks down, heating fails, the room is not always dark, can have direct sunlight etc. Provide me something that can last a 100 years in conditions of, at least, 30 degree centigrade variation, and then it might be interesting. Certainly I won't be around to appreciate the end results, but for archival this is a requirement, IMHO.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Wow, I submitted that like a week ago.
Your submission was undergoing testing for the last week at room temperature and the editors are now confident enough that it will be acceptable.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Since this technology is still transistor-based, wouldn't it be susceptible to damage from an electromagnetic pulse, either from a high-energy radio frequency device or (less likely, I hope) a nuclear weapon? EM radiation can travel much farther than the actual blast radius, leaving these cards physically intact, but electrically unusable. If true, then why not stick with optical media such as a DVD or CD, which is more durable and offers similarly complex tamper protection (not to mention a larger capacity at a lower price)?
This looks like a solution in search of a problem.
A large portion of RIAA's and MPAA's distributors rely on people buying copy after copy of the same media as it gets damaged or lost.
Or the shellac breaks in transit to the record store.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
...since the 'other news' today says that's all we have left [ http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html ]...
To me this is kind of a technology regression, unless one is only concerned with archiving. I used to work at a Title Company where scanned documents were stored on a WORM drive in the mid-90's. WORM as a technology in itself tends to err on the side of retention time vs. speed. Think about it, CD-R, DVD-R and every other -R is technically WORM media.
It's not as simple as stating paper. There is good and there is bad paper when it comes to longevity. Papyrus (dead sea scrolls) and lint paper are good, but paper used in newspapers is decaying. The yellowish color that it gets over a few years is an indication of it's decay. It can be stopped, but at a cost.
Even laser printed paper have problems - the printed text is only sticking to the surface of the paper. Ink penetrates the paper more and bleeds into the fibers. But some ink is better than other so the ordinary inkjet ink may not be a good choice anyway. A classic ink based on metal (E.g. iron) may be a choice since even though it may change over time the print will last.
Laser etching in a glass pane would probably be safe from decay but would be hard to store safely - and be expensive. At least it would probably last long enough to allow the world to forget that this civilization did exist.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
with a useless bit of trivia
Kodak- 100+ years
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1632.shtml
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
No it's not. This is a high priced flash-based SD card with only 1GB of storage that requires you to write to each card. It's too small for video, too expensive for consumers, and not useful for media mass production.
Besides, if the content mass production industry wanted to use a transistor-based solution they'd just mass produce a much cheaper ROM cartridge. But they won't, since DVDs and Blu-Ray disks can be pressed for pennies.
You don't have to wait 100 years if it fails early.
We've seen a lot of discussion about "file and forget" digital storage methods. I haven't seen one that I'd trust over even a 10 year time period. The only practical solution is to periodically move your data over to the latest, long term storage medium. Make multiple copies each time, and store them in separate physical locations. I make sure to store all of my personal/financial/etc data along with family pictures and videos. I challenge you to go more than five years without wanting to watch your kids walk for the first time. This helps remind me when it's time to update.
. . . we called them PROMs. If you have an original IBM PC, its BIOS was in PROM. I bet most PROMs still are readable.
While not as sudden or dramatic as Mission Impossibles discs, there are the read-only for 48 hours dvds.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Glass would deform in that time scale...
I'm guessing your talking about the urban myth that glass can flow and melt? Sorry, but glass doesn't melt, it would hold it's form as long as it isn't shattered.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
You apparently didn't bother to read the link in the parent. It specifically refutes your example and the method under which you claim it operates.
If you'd like to refute the link feel free, but please cite credentials at least as authoritative as C. Wu, Science News, Vol. 153, No. 22, May 30, 1998, p. 341 or Zanotto, E.D. 1998. Do cathedral glasses flow? American Journal of Physics 66(May):392, as the linked page does.
Wrong. It is indeed an urban myth, read the damn link that GP posted!! The church example of thicker glass on the bottom is explained much more simply than by the glass slowly moving over time: Glass manufacturing wasn't sophisticated enough to make a flat piece of glass like it is today. If you were given a piece of glass with a thick side and a thin side, which side would you put on the bottom of the window? The thick side, of course, as that will offer better structural integrity.
The tl;dr version, if my memory serves me accurately:
The panes of glass which are thicker at one side are the side effect of the imprecise glass manufacturing skill of that time. The panes were usually installed thickest-side-down because that is the most sensible from an engineering point of view: center of mass as low as possible for the most stability. However, some examples have been found of glass that was installed upside-down (thickest side at the top, either by accident or by chance), refuting the notion that the thickness at the bottom is caused by the glass deforming slightly over time.
You could probably verify all that by looking online for an article that doesn’t require subscription to access but I’m to lazy to bother right now...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Summary is misleading. TFA doesn't go into detail about age testing. I imagine they temperature test these chips by "aging" them in an oven at 250C for several days.
We do that with the chips we make at my company. It's a pretty reliable indicator of data longevity.
Very informative. I'm usually pretty good about avoiding urban legend. TY