Ask Slashdot: Best Medium For Personal Archive?

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?

Comments

stone tablets

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

... have always worked for me.

Re:stone tablets

[ShanghaiBill]

... 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.

Re:stone tablets

[jeffmeden]

... 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?!

Re:stone tablets

[mlts]

I do have one hope -- the USB bus seems to still have devices that interoperate at USB 1.1 speeds, even now, almost 15 years later. This is a good thing. If those devices are still usable on modern systems, then a floppy drive, or a CD drive are usable and would continue to be usable. USB 3 definitely is different, but there will be adapters so that people's mice and other items will continue to operate.

The parent is correct though. Critical data can't just be tossed on some media and forgotten. Ideally, every year or two, it should be copied onto something new. At least every five years, it should see a new medium.

What comes to my mind are software products like TrueCrypt. Who would have thought that TC, something one had as a utility for over a decade, would be sunsetted with multiple, incompatible forks out there? Now is a good time to move data stored in that format to another secure format [1].

Tape pose two problems -- not just finding a physical drive, but what software is being used? This is a bit easier with LTFS (put the tape in, it has a filesystem that is mountable), but in general, is data stored using tar, or some vendor specific utility. AFIAK, NetBackup uses cpio, IBM TSM uses its own specific format, and so on. However, if handed a tape, it becomes a matter of guessing to find out what is stashed on it, and some formats like DLT, one also has to factor in blocksizes. However, if one documents and keeps the backups programs around, this shouldn't be a major issue, although it seems to be often overlooked.

[1]: If the data is static, and one isn't worried about an intruder knowing the data's size, gpg or PGP Zip come to mind. Drive images are harder -- since TC is gone, one sort of has to bet between VeraCrypt and CipherShed to see which one will continue versus which will be discontinued.

Re:stone tablets

[vtcodger]

I looked into the reliability of CDs a decade or two ago. The consensus back then was that the lifetime of writable CDs (as opposed to the plastic disks with mechanically stamped pits) was unknown, but probably somewhere in range of a few years to a few decades. Worse, to avoid royalty issues, every CD maker used a different proprietary dye layer with different characteristics. Back then, it was far from a sure thing that a CD written on one drive could be read back reliably on a different drive even before the disk aged for a few years.

I'm not saying that CDs aren't suitable for storage, just that one probably ought to do some research about longevity before committing to their use as an archiving medium.

Really, same's probably true of any media other than punched cards.

Encrypted External Drive in a Fire Safe

[Mr.Intel]

Personally, I have three external hard drives encrypted with TrueCrypt that I rotate and keep in a fire safe at an offsite building. I rotate them monthly. Cost is a little high, but it fast, easy and convenient for me. Your circumstances are likely different enough that you will need a different approach. But generally, my archive set is large (3+TB) and sensitive (taxes, bank statements, account numbers, passwords, etc) so this solution works best for me.

External Harddrive

[painandgreed]

Every year, I just back up my files to an external hard drive and put it in my safety deposit box in the bank. If my house burns down, I still have all my photos (long since scanned in all my old film stuff), documents, and even music. I've got the last several years in there so it would take three or so drives not working to really lose everything (after I lost everything at home). Usually I spend a little extra money to make sure I have small external hard drives that don't have wall worts to power them as they'll fit in the safety deposit box easier and I won't have to keep track of the wall worts either. In the past, I suggested my parents do the same with a flash drive and my father scoffed when I mentioned keeping on in the safety deposit box. Of course, his computer got hit with the encryption malware and they lost everything including the flash drive we back up everything several years earlier because they can't remember where it might be.

Base64

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Base64

[geminidomino]

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

Laptop hard drives

[Drago3711]

I happen to like 2TB internal laptop hard drives (2.5").

Pros:
-High capacity
-Small form factor, will fit in most safes / lock-boxes
-Slightly more shock resistant than 3.5" drives.
-Fit my hard drive dock/drive duplicator
Cons:
-Slightly pricey because of the large capacity

Keep the anti-static bag it comes in and toss a few zip-lock bags around it for a little bit of water resistance. If the data is worth anything to you, keep a local offline archive and one at a friend's house. If anything sensitive is on it, pick your favourite encryption (truecrypt is still my goto).

Don't forget top get a media grade lockbox

[MacRonin]

Remember that magnetic and other computer media needs a higher level of lock box protection if you are thinking of heat/fire. Believe it or not the computer media can get damaged and rendered unusable at lower temperatures than the paper will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Pair of external HD's

[Maxwell]

You copy your hard drive every 3 months, but didn't recopy your optical disks for 15 years. And to you, this is 'proof' that HDD are superior?! OK, got it. I suggest reburn every 5 years on optical. You get a fresh disk and a chance to consolidate CD to DVD, DVD to BD etc.

Re:DVD

[zarthrag]

I have DVDs that I've burned as a teenager kept in a nice, high-quality soft "archival" binder for the last 18 years. Nearly all of them, of varying quality/expense, are unreadable due to degradation.

OTOH, I've got old 500MB harddrives that read/work just fine and are just as old. I'd expect sealed HDDs to be as good as it gets - tape is nice, but maintaining a supported/working tape drive was always difficult (used to have one). But, unlike every other type of storage, harddrives are actually capable of warning you of an impending failure. (I've been *saved* by S.M.A.R.T. at least twice, over the years.) Add some rudimentary RAID, and you're probably good. The only way I can think of to go further is to use two/three, and cycle them between your PC(often/all the time), a nearby firesafe(When you are heading in that direction), and a safety-deposit box (seasonally?).

Screw the data!

[__aaclcg7560]

I'm putting silver bullion into my lockbox.

Hardcopy, or maybe DNA?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

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!

Don't go overboard...

[jjn1056]

How much of your information needs to live significantly beyond your personal lifetime? My guess is you need not consider storage that will live beyond your children, who might have some need to review your papers for personal or practical reasons. Your grandchildren might like a handful of pictures, nothing more than than.

If your information is actually valuable (its creative or philosophical or similar) other people will look to its preservation.

I tend to split stuff up. For my profession life as a programmer I use github and one other git based storage. Anything worth keeping I'd migrate to whatever replaces git. For personal life I keep backups of photos and videos on local and networked (cloud based) storage. For tax stuff I just have a fireproof locker.

I imagine in 20 or 30 years the only stuff of value will be my movies and photos and written personal documents. After I'm dead none of that stuff will meant much to anyone, unless my son wants some pics of our dogs when he was young. And he'd be the last one to care about any of that stuff.

Try not to let possessions become too important. You are going to have it all taken away from you eventually.