"blockquote>Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 to 100 years, depending on their quality"
Speaking as a disaster recovery consultant... I heartily disagree. Hard drive storage, despite the still existant capacity for failure, is a more reliable storage medium. You're better off using disk for long-term storage, with a replacement scheme in place, rather than magnetic tape.
Optical media of higher quality (Like the Azo dye technology that Verbatim uses on their Medidisc line) will give you a great long-term storage, but at the price of limited maximum size unless you're using a jukebox system.
I think another user might have suggested it - high-capacity drives with a USB or SATA enclosure. Be prepared to swap it out every so often to ensure a 'fresh' drive.
Don't trust tape. It's susceptible to deformation (from being stretched EVERY time you use it, and even just from the tension it's held to within its own case), temperature shock (think quick hot then quick cold, or vice versa... shatter), and good ol' magnetic fluctuations, but even moreso than hard drives because of the lack of adequate shielding.
Bear in mind, too, that burned CDs vs. Mastered CDs makes a difference.
The CDs that are being referred to as having a short lifespan have to do with not Mastered CDs, but rather the Burned CDs - which are really a layer of dye between plastic and some other substrate.
Mastered CDs will last a HECK of a lot longer than CDRs.
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"blockquote>Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 to 100 years, depending on their quality"
Speaking as a disaster recovery consultant... I heartily disagree. Hard drive storage, despite the still existant capacity for failure, is a more reliable storage medium. You're better off using disk for long-term storage, with a replacement scheme in place, rather than magnetic tape.
Optical media of higher quality (Like the Azo dye technology that Verbatim uses on their Medidisc line) will give you a great long-term storage, but at the price of limited maximum size unless you're using a jukebox system.
I think another user might have suggested it - high-capacity drives with a USB or SATA enclosure. Be prepared to swap it out every so often to ensure a 'fresh' drive.
Don't trust tape. It's susceptible to deformation (from being stretched EVERY time you use it, and even just from the tension it's held to within its own case), temperature shock (think quick hot then quick cold, or vice versa... shatter), and good ol' magnetic fluctuations, but even moreso than hard drives because of the lack of adequate shielding.
Just my $.02 .
Bear in mind, too, that burned CDs vs. Mastered CDs makes a difference.
The CDs that are being referred to as having a short lifespan have to do with not Mastered CDs, but rather the Burned CDs - which are really a layer of dye between plastic and some other substrate.
Mastered CDs will last a HECK of a lot longer than CDRs.