[DM-MUG] long-term data storage

[Jon Thompson]

Darcy,

It really depends on how much you are archiving.  Are you saving  
video?  Are you saving email?  This really plays into how much  
storage you need to save.

If it is video, you really are going to spend quite a bit on anything  
other than optical, which would be fine as long as it is stored in  
jewel cases under normal indoor climate.

If you want to spend quite a bit, you can look at tape mechanisms,  
although I would plan on migrating out the tapes on a regular  
schedule, every two years on a weekly backup schedule.

If it is email, you can easily plan on a hard drive, with the plan of  
switching it out every few years.

The key to long term backups is knowing your media and its lifespan,  
and migrating off of it before the data degrades.  There is _no_ true  
long term storage available for digital media.  Tapes will degrade.   
Hard drives will die.  Optical will degrade.  Paper curls, fades, and  
burns.  Stone erodes, but the information embedded on the pyramids is  
around because of the best long term storage available.

As for Iomega claiming 35 years, you and I both know that this  
product has not existed for that long, so they really have no real  
way of knowing how long the product will last.  Furthermore, with  
Iomega's record, I would not trust their products to last five minutes.
-- 
Jon Thompson
jthompson at greatapetrust.org
515.360.1351

Insights through collaborations with apes
Great Ape Trust of Iowa
www.greatapetrust.org



On 2006, Aug 22, at 10:03 AM, Darcy Baston wrote:

> I keep hearing horror stories about CDR/DVDR type media losing its  
> data within months to years, and have lost some data myself from  
> disks that seemed to have its data evaporate. Well, when I say  
> evaporate I mean within months, files that could open one month  
> were unreadable in the next etc.
>
> Someone told me that the organic nature of DVD/CD R media  
> interracts very easily with the air and the foam in the soft sleeve  
> multipak media holders. You know the kind that look like binders  
> with pages of pockets? I'm not sure if this is true, but the all  
> this information and experience has led me to believe that if I  
> really want to archive something for 5-10 years, optical is not the  
> way go.
>
> I've considered using hard drives, but those devices are on shorter  
> borrowed time. I've had a good track record, getting a hard drive  
> to last at least 5 years, but I need to go past that with some  
> confidence.
>
> So, my next bit of research is going to be on other solutions  
> including tape. While looking up stuff, I discovered Iomega had a  
> cartridge solution called the Iomega Rev. I know it's an  
> independent motor hard drive cartridge solution, but they claim  
> their 35GB media will hold information for 30 years. I'm assuming  
> that's in a vacuum, but surely in a dry cool environment I can get  
> 10 years out of it?
>
> Are there any other solutions I should/could be looking at? Does  
> anyone have any personal experience with the goal of long-term data  
> storage?
>
> Thanks!
> Darcy
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