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Ask Slashdot: Best Medium For Personal Archive?

Posted by timothy on from the but-with-8-tracks-you-can-still-lose-7 dept.

An anonymous reader writes What would be the best media to store a backup of important files in a lockbox? Like a lot of people we have a lot of important information on our computers, and have a lot of files that we don't want backed up in the cloud, but want to preserve. Everything from our personally ripped media, family pictures, important documents, etc.. We are considering BluRay, HDD, and SSD but wanted to ask the Slashdot community what they would do. So, in 2015, what technology (or technologies!) would you employ to best ensure your data's long-term survival? Where would you put that lockbox?

6 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. stone tablets by ThatsDrDangerToYou · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... have always worked for me.

    1. Re:stone tablets by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... have always worked for me.

      Here's an even better solution: Since this exact same question has been asked on Slashdot multiple times, and the topic has been beaten to death, just look in the archives and see what everyone recommended last time. Hint: The consensus recommendation was to pick at least two different media, and store them in a least two different geographical locations, then migrate to different media as technology improves.

      The submitter is leaving out most important information: How much data? Storing terabytes is different than storing gigabytes (which will fit on a thumb drive). How long? The submitter says "backups" not "archives", which implies that long shelf life is not a priority, but many people use the terms interchangeably.

      OK hotshot, how sure are you that the medium those *wonderful* answers are stored on hasn't deteriorated, resulting in us looking back on bad advice?!

  2. Base64 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's an open format, so its usability will penetrate deep into the future.

    I've already converted my entire porn collection to Base64 encoding, and printed it out on archival paper (acid-resistant for obvious reasons); I've grown so used to it, that sometimes the alphanumeric text is enough to make me extend my coffee breaks.

    I just tell people the boxes filled with reams of paper are my late grandfather's WWII anti-NAZI code-breaking attempts.

    1. Re:Base64 by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead...

  3. Screw the data! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm putting silver bullion into my lockbox.

  4. Hardcopy, or maybe DNA? by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Print all of your text documents on acid free paper in triplicate and store them in climate controlled facilities around the planet. Maybe even keep an extra copy on the Moon just in case. All of your digital files can be uuencoded before being printed out.

    If you're really paranoid, you can encode everything into the DNA of some organisms and then distribute them throughout local and deep space with rocket ships and comets!