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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."

25 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. That's what they said about CD-Rs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .. 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.

    1. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly, I would be curious to know what sort of "room temperature" tests can tell how reliable something is going to be in 100 years.

    2. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by countertrolling · · Score: 5, Funny

      Post this again in 100 years...

      Yeah, I'll be here yelling DUPE!

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    3. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny

      .. 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.

      yes but this one comes with a money back gauretee if you can't read your data in 100 years.

      Of course there won't be any software that can read the format. Even if it were unformatted data, We've gone from ebcdic to ascii to unicode is a very short time.

      in 100 years logic will all be spintronic coupled quantum states locates in googles tritium powered headquarters on mars. You'll communicate with it by quantum entanglement of the implants added to your brain when you were an infant. The division between thought and recall will not be perceptible and you won't even be aware that information storage actually exists. the idea of possessing a physcial storage device will confuse people, so no one will actually know what it is.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    4. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      remind me never to watch Star Trek with you. Or play Mass Effect. Or anything.

      Thanks, Mr. Buzzkillinton.

    5. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by Raul654 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're not being imaginative enough. One very hot topic of research in reliable computing right now are self-describing file formats. They are less space-efficient but they should effectively solve the software-side problem of long term storage. Interesting enough, the US National Archive is one of the biggest players on the block when it comes to thing kind of research.

      --


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      --E.C. Stanton
    6. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by ninjackn · · Score: 5, Informative

      TFA article is wrong. If you look at sandisk's actual press release they say the 100 life span is "based on reliability data from internal, accelerated lifespan testing for cards stored at normal room temperature, with humidity and static protection".

      --
      [FUCK BETA 2.6.2014]
    7. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by mirix · · Score: 5, Informative

      True, but modern (E)EPROM programmers / readers will still read EPROM chips dating to at least the late 70's.

      A SD card has a lot more in common with a ROM chip than it does with a 30 year old spinning disk, the way I see it. You call pull data off it using SPI interface, which pretty well every microcontroller made in the last decade has in hardware, and if not, you can bit-bang it half-drunk and blindfolded. All the information is available, I just can't see it being lost to the sands of time if you can bang up a reader for peanuts.

      Guys have hooked these up to (home) routers, bitbanging the data off GPIOs that were originally relegated to flickering LEDs, and are able to use them as storage. (under linux)

      Here is a pdf on the interface.
      http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf
      Section 7 is what I'm on about. The speed is reduced in the simple SPI mode, but if the data is important, I suppose that is irrelevant.

      --
      Sent from my PDP-11
    8. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hang on a minute, you sound like you know what you're talking about. WTF are you doing on /. ?

    9. Re:That's what they said about CD-Rs by Voyager529 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I defy you to find a cheap, easy way to read 50 year old media, even if the media itself is in pristine condition. Hell, I'll even make it easier for you and set the limit at 30 year old media.

      Challenge accepted: The vinyl record.

      Records made 50 years ago are still readable using my Numark TTX turntables I bought last year, using the Shure M44-7 needle I bought at Christmas. I'd dare say that most records made 80 or 90 years ago - though encoded in mono - are still able to be played back presuming the media itself is intact.

      Granted back then there wasn't much in the way of digital information being written onto vinyl, but there is now - it's called timecode (i.e. Serato, Traktor, Torq, etc.). So it's not THAT much of a stretch to essentially record data modulated into sound similar to an old dial-up modem on a record, then playing it back circa 2110 assuming that it doesn't spend a sunny summer day in my car.

      What about barcodes printed onto paper, or some digital variant of braille? It's not necessarily the most IDEAL way of storing data for easy retrieval - in both cases the storage density is very low and thus an admittedly low capacity - but it satisfies your requirements of being a storage medium that has survived for 50 years and is still readable by hardware in active production.

  2. 100 years sounds good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:100 years sounds good... by miggyb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't know. On the other hand, the industry has gotten a lot better at reusing connections and being backwards-compatible. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1.1, I believe. Serially attached SCSI uses the same connection as SATA. We haven't moved beyond 24 pin motherboard power connectors for ages. The new SDXC standard still accepts regular SD cards. The examples go on and on.

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    2. Re:100 years sounds good... by 1u3hr · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Why don't you try clay tablets? An egyptian friend highly recommends those!

      Egyptians mostly used papyrus, it was the Sumerians who used clay tablets for documents. If baked, they are virtually indestructible (there are plenty 5 or 6 thousand years old) and museums now have millions of them slowly being collated and translated.

  3. Re:Not Enough Testing by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...

  4. 100 years in what conditions? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  5. Re:Wow... by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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  6. Re:tamper proof by slashqwerty · · Score: 4, Informative

    The worst part is that the police will be using it.
    Imagine if the courts actually believed that it was tamper proof.

    For non-repudiation purposes, digital data can have a cryptographic hash computed on it. It can also be signed with a timestamp by a trusted third-party. If you're concerned about data being tampered with after it is on the card, the police can simply publish a cryptographic hash of every card they archive after they have written to it. In fact they can do that regardless of how they store the data.

  7. Re:Most likely scenarios by Ziekheid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it funny that people actually think we won't be able to recreate old technology and we would have to go to museums to get the latest working readers.
    Furthermore data will just be copied and copied and copied to the latest hype so these usb cards probably won't still be around by then.

  8. Good timing... by djupedal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...since the 'other news' today says that's all we have left [ http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html ]...

  9. Re:Most likely scenarios by Vellmont · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every time I hear one of these "but.. but but nobody will have the technology to READ these things in 100 years!" all I hear is "everyone will be stupid in the future".

    Someone recently created a device to read some crazy obscure technology produced by Edison to record sound on film, and that wasn't even all that valuable.

    The real deal is, if the data is important enough someone will maintain the technology to read it, or re-create it.

    --
    AccountKiller
  10. Re:The Egyptians did it first by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  11. Allow me to expand your knowledge by way2trivial · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  12. Re:tamper proof by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Get an identical card. Copy the data to HDD, tamper away, rewrite to new card.

    Tamper proof my arse.

  13. 30 Years Ago . . . by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 4, Informative

    . . . we called them PROMs. If you have an original IBM PC, its BIOS was in PROM. I bet most PROMs still are readable.

  14. Re:The Egyptians did it first by Kitkoan · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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